For the Instructor
These student materials complement the Water Science and Society Instructor Materials. If you would like your students to have access to the student materials, we suggest you either point them at the Student Version which omits the framing pages with information designed for faculty (and this box). Or you can download these pages in several formats that you can include in your course website or local Learning Managment System. Learn more about using, modifying, and sharing InTeGrate teaching materials.Groundwater Budgets
Now that you are an expert on how groundwater flows, we will apply that knowledge to the important problem of groundwater budgets. As groundwater flows through and exits an aquifer, for example at springs or at extraction wells, those losses of water may be balanced by recharge that percolates from the land surface. As you'll investigate in the following section, and through a case study of the famous Ogallala aquifer in the American Midwest, understanding the budget of inflows and outflows to an aquifer is critical to evaluating the sustainability of groundwater use.