The Groundwater program, led by the Groundwater and Geological Services Section, provides leadership to advance the understanding and management of Michigan’s groundwater and geologic systems, supporting long-term assessment of subsurface conditions and trends.
Through both the Groundwater Data Unit and the Water Use Assessment Unit, we facilitate aquifer dispute resolution, maintain and enhance groundwater data systems, support groundwater and surface water monitoring and modeling efforts, and administer water use and reporting programs.
Well conflicts are resolved through the Aquifer Dispute processes, as described in Part 317
Our groundwater data unit oversees the development of the groundwater and stream monitoring networks, groundwater data management system, and groundwater modeling services
Our Water Use Program staff help large volume water users obtain required registrations and permits as prescribed by Part 327
Large volume water users are required to submit their annual water use through our water use reporting program
The Water Use Advisory Council (WUAC) was established under Part 328 of the Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Act to study and make recommendations to EGLE, DNR, MDARD, and the Michigan legislature on Michigan's Water Use Program.
Council meetings are open to the public.
Ongoing funded projects support the continued collection, analysis, and application of groundwater and geologic data to advance resource management and environmental protection across Michigan.
These projects build systems, tools, or methods to manage, integrate, or process hydrogeologic data.
The Groundwater Data Management System (GWDMS) will create a single data storage solution housing hydrogeological data from all EGLE divisions.
Retaining data in one system will improve EGLE’s ability to better understand the state’s geology and groundwater resources, which will lead to more informed decisions about the use, cleanup, and protection of groundwater in Michigan.
This project, in collaboration with Wayne State University’s Center for Leadership in Environmental Awareness and Research (CLEAR), is developing a natural language processing model (NLM) to extract machine-available, geolocated datasets from boring logs, analytic reports, and site maps on a county-by-county basis, starting in Wayne County. This data will be integrated into the Groundwater Data Management System.
This project was established through a Water Use Advisory Council recommendation and is being completed by the Michigan Geologic Survey (MGS) where available hydrogeologic datasets have been categorized based on data reliability, age relevance, review status, spatial and temporal coverage, completeness, and known limitations.
The analysis will be used to focus areas of further research or data collection.
These projects are focused on producing models, scientific evaluations, or new hydrogeologic understanding.
This project was established through Water Use Advisory Council (WUAC) recommendation. The Michigan Hydrologic Framework (MHF) is being developed in cooperation with EGLE, MSU, and USGS will be a publicly available model sharing and generation environment. The Michigan Hydrologic Framework will facilitate submittal, visualization, validation, and download of shared MODFLOW-based groundwater flow models based on developer election. The MHF will also provide centralized access to external linked datasets within a GIS enabled interface.
This project was established through a Water Use Advisory Council (WUAC) recommendation. The project team including representatives from EGLE and MSU examines the relationships between long-term changes in index flows (IFs) and IF yield, for example, inches of runoff for the catchment divided by inches of precipitation in the catchment for an appropriate time frame relative to climatic conditions at gaged streams throughout Michigan.
This project was established through Water Use Advisory Council (WUAC) recommendation proposed in collaboration with the Catchment Scale Accounting project. The two major hypotheses to be tested are the attenuation of peak depletion from channel dispersion and the attenuation of peak depletion by near-stream storage. The results of all work under this agreement will be available for publication by the U.S. Geological Survey.
This project was established through a Water Use Advisory Council (WUAC) recommendation. The Aquifer Data Assessment Tool Project is a collaborative effort among Fishbeck, Michigan State University, and EGLE, focused on improving the aquifer properties transition and storage used in the Water Withdrawal Assessment Tool (WWAT) analytic solutions through data cleanup and updated glacial aquifer interpolations.
The study also identified areas where aquifers are confined vs unconfined to assure appropriate storage assumptions.
This project was established through a Water Use Advisory Council (WUAC) recommendation. Barr Engineering and EGLE mapped two counties (Cass and Calhoun) using 3D transition probability methodology using aquifer type classes (Aquifer Material, Marginal Aquifer Material, Partially Confining Material, and Confining Material).
Estimates were subjected to “goodness of fit” evaluations which data that was held in reserve was used to estimate predictive accuracy.
These projects are focused on expanding or improving real‑world hydrologic data collection.
We are developing a statewide groundwater monitoring network that will be used to observe short-term and long-term trends in groundwater elevations across Michigan.
As part of the project, EGLE became a new data provider to the United States Geological Survey (USGS) National Groundwater Monitoring Network (NGWMN), which is a compilation of selected groundwater monitoring wells from Federal, State, and local groundwater monitoring networks across the nation.
We are expanding our existing statewide stream gage network which will provide more complete data on surface water trends.
This information is crucial for managing current and future water use demands among multiple water use sectors, including public and private drinking water supplies, agriculture, and industry, as well as for protecting aquatic and other natural resources.
We are partnering with the United States Geological Survey (USGS) Upper Midwest Water Science Center to expand surface water and groundwater data collection networks in Michigan. This project, named “Hydrologic Enhancement for Michigan,” or HEMI, includes four major components:
The HEMI project will improve our understanding of surface water and groundwater in Michigan, including the subsurface geology. It will also improve our capacity to measure and model the effects of water use withdrawals and various hydrologic changes on streams and groundwater, which will support infrastructure planning and management of Michigan’s water resources now and into the future.
These projects are focused on conservation practices, education, and efficiency improvements.
This project was established through Water Use Advisory Council (WUAC) recommendation. This project, named “Mobile Irrigation Lab”, includes a team within MSU Extension evaluating center pivot irrigation systems, coordinating with a farm to repair and/or upgrade the existing system, estimating potential water and energy savings, and developing a customized irrigation scheduling guide.
The study also includes farm demonstrations, water use, and crop yield data collection to provide an estimate of the benefits to the environment and overall cost to operate the systems.
Learn more about MSU's Mobile Irrigation Lab
Alliance for Water Efficiency completed a project identifying innovations and technological advancements in water conservation best management practices.
This project was established through Water Use Advisory Council (WUAC) recommendation. MSU Extension funding to deliver education programs and training on water efficiency for the agriculture sector.
These projects focus on tools focused on predicting or evaluating hydrologic impacts of withdrawals.
We have updated the Water Withdrawal Assessment Tool (WWAT) to use newly released USGS code PyCap-dds to estimate streamflow depletion as a result of Large Quantity Withdrawals.
The redevelopment of the Water Withdrawal Assessment Tool was recently described in Michigan’s State of the Great Lakes 2025 Report.
This project was established through Water Use Advisory Council (WUAC) recommendation. The Inland Lakes project will be completed in summer of 2027 through a collaborative group including representatives from the USGS, MSU, Trout Unlimited, Wisconsin DNR, and EGLE aiming to develop a framework for how lakes throughout the state can be assessed for sensitivity to Large Quantity water Withdrawals (LQW).
The primary objectives include determining what kind of changes in lake conditions constitute an Adverse Resource Impact (ARI), as well as how this evaluation can be effectively, and efficiently, applied on a state-wide scale.
This project was established through Water Use Advisory Council (WUAC) recommendation. Water resource development is important to Michigan and will likely grow in importance as climate variability and change motivate increased use of irrigation to provide economic stability. The Michigan Water Withdrawal Assessment Process takes a precautionary approach to prevent adverse resource impacts (ARI) from surface or groundwater withdrawals. Industrial development, change in power generation, and population growth can also lead to increased use of high-capacity wells for water supply.
The Streamflow Depletion project was established during the 2024 WUAC recommendation process and is the modern version of the 1960’s USGS Little Plover River streamflow-depletion experiment conducted in Wisconsin. The primary objectives of this project are to empirically demonstrate streamflow depletion from a high-capacity well and pumping, collect detailed data for model creation and build relationships with water users.
The project is set to kick off in 2027 by the USGS, MSU, Farm Bureau, EGLE, and local irrigators and continue for two growing seasons.
For questions about the groundwater program, contact Juneal Black with the Groundwater and Geological Services Section at 517-930-1071 or BlackJ20@Michigan.gov.
