Geohydrologic framework of the Snake River plain regional aquifer system, Idaho and eastern Oregon

Abstract

The Regional Aquifer-System Analysis (RASA) Program was started in 1978 following a congressional mandate to develop quantitative appraisals of the major ground-water systems of the United States. The RASA Program represents a systematic effort to study a number of the Nation's most important aquifer systems, which in aggregate underlie much of the country and which represent an important component of the Nation's total water supply. In general, the boundaries of these studies are identified by the hydrologic extent of each system and accordingly transcend the political subdivisions to which investigations have often arbitrarily been limited in the past. The broad objective for each study is to assemble geologic, hydrologic, and geochemical information, to analyze and develop an understanding of the system, and to develop predictive capabilities that will contribute to the effective management of the system. The use of computer simulation is an important element of the RASA studies, both to develop an understanding of the natural, undisturbed hydrologic system and the changes brought about in it by human activities, and to provide a means of predicting the regional effects of future pumping or other stresses.