Assignment: Aquifer Case Study

Assignment: Aquifer Case Study

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For this assignment, you will complete a Aquifer case study based on the course objectives and weekly content. Aquifer cases emphasize core learning objectives for an evidence-based primary care curriculum. Throughout your nurse practitioner program, you will use the Aquifer case studies to promote the development of clinical reasoning through the use of ongoing assessment and diagnostic skills and to develop patient care plans that are grounded in the latest clinical guidelines and evidence-based practice.

After you complete the Aquifer case study for the week, please print out the summary of your case session and submit as a PDF file to the Submissions Area. Note that the summary of your case session has your name in the top-right corner. You need to submit this document as evidence that you have completed the case.

The Aquifer assignments are highly interactive and a dynamic way to enhance your learning. Material from the Aquifer cases will be present in the weekly quizzes, the midterm exam, and the final exam. You must have all Aquifer assignments completed in order to successfully pass the course.

Use this link for information on how to access and navigate Aquifer.

This week, complete the case entitled “Case #18: 24-year-old female with headaches – Ms. Payne.”

Submission Details:

Name your document SU_NSG6440_W8_Project1_LastName_FirstInitial.pdf.

Submit your document to the Submissions Area by the due date assigned.

Groundwater and aquifers

A hole dug at the beach is a great way to illustrate the concept of how, below a certain depth, the ground, if it is permeable enough to hold water, is saturated with water. The upper surface of this zone of saturation is called the water table. (Credit: Howard Perlman, USGS)

I hope you appreciate my spending an hour in the blazing sun to dig this hole at the beach. It is a great way to illustrate the concept of how, below a certain depth, the ground, if it is permeable enough to hold water, is saturated with water. The upper surface of this zone of saturation is called the water table. The saturated zone beneath the water table is called an aquifer, and aquifers are huge storehouses of water. What you are looking at in this picture is a “well” that exposes the water table, with an aquifer beneath it. Of course, I am cheating here, as at the beach, the level of the water table is always at the same level as the ocean, which is just below the surface of the beach.

Groundwater is one of our most valuable resources—even though you probably never see it or even realize it is there. As you may have read, most of the void spaces in the rocks below the water table are filled with water. These rocks have different porosity and permeability characteristics, which means that water does not move around the same way in all rocks below ground.

When a water-bearing rock readily transmits water to wells and springs, it is called an aquifer. Wells can be drilled into the aquifers and water can be pumped out. Precipitation ventually adds water (recharge) into the porous rock of the aquifer. The rate of recharge is not the same for all aquifers, though, and that must be considered when pumping water from a well. Pumping too much water too fast draws down the water in the aquifer and eventually causes a well to yield less and less water and even run dry. In fact, pumping your well too much can even cause your neighbor’s well to run dry if you both are pumping from the same aquifer.

Visualizing groundwater

In the diagram below, you can see how the ground below the water table (the blue area) is saturated with water. The “unsaturated zone” above the water table (the gray area) still contains water (after all, plants’ roots live in this area), but it is not totally saturated with water. You can see this in the two drawings at the bottom of the diagram, which show a close-up of how water is stored in between underground rock particles.

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