9-2 Creation of Groundwater Monitoring Dashboard for the City of Charleston

Session: Advances in Geologic Mapping, Databases, and Dissemination: Student Posters

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Abstract:

Groundwater monitoring in low-lying coastal cities, such as Charleston, South Carolina, is crucial for understanding the effects of sea-level rise, tides, and extreme precipitation on groundwater and its impacts on flooding and buried infrastructure vulnerability. As part of its commitment to data-driven resilience planning, the City of Charleston initiated a city-led groundwater monitoring program in 2019, establishing a network of 14 shallow monitoring wells across the city. This effort has generated a high-resolution, multi-year groundwater-level dataset that captures temporal responses to rainfall, tides, and seasonal variability.

This study presents the development of a groundwater monitoring dashboard designed to transform these large time-series datasets into an accessible decision-support tool for city planners, engineers, GIS professionals, and emergency management staff. Groundwater data are integrated with local soil characteristics and hydrologic conditions to visualize spatial and temporal patterns of groundwater vulnerability. Analyses focus on identifying areas where groundwater frequently approaches or reaches the land surface, increasing susceptibility to flooding, infrastructure damage, and public health concerns.

Results demonstrate that groundwater responses vary significantly across the city depending on soil properties, proximity to tidal waters, and rainfall intensity. By linking groundwater dynamics to surface conditions, the dashboard enables identification of high-risk areas and supports the development of proactive mitigation strategies, including infrastructure planning and flood response protocols. This project highlights the importance of sustained, municipal-scale groundwater monitoring and demonstrates how translating complex subsurface data into an accessible format can improve coastal resilience decision-making.

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