The American Water Resource Association (AWRA), Alaska Section, is organizing a series of three workshops focused on training environmental scientists and water managers in Alaska in fundamentals of groundwater flow, and how groundwater modeling tools may be used to address important water resource problems. The first of these three workshops will take place in Juneau on March 4-5th, 2012, in conjunction with the 2012 Annual Conference of the AWRA Alaska Section.

Groundwater models are commonly used in a variety of applications ranging from source water protection and water resource management to simulation of groundwater-surface water interaction, at scales ranging from centimeters to kilometers. The most widely used software package for groundwater modeling is the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) finite difference code, MODFLOW.

The Alaska Department of Natural Resources (ADNR) and USGS have undertaken a three-year cooperative study of regional groundwater flow in the Matanuska-Susitna Valley, including development of a groundwater flow model. This model will provide a foundation for the workshop series, highlighting successful methods for addressing hydrogeologic conditions unique to Alaska, and providing hands-on experience for participants in using an existing model to solve some common hydrogeologic problems. During this first workshop, participants will be introduced to the physical basis, capabilities, and limitations of groundwater models. Participants will also learn how to access and modify model input files, run the model, and interpret model output files.

Participants may register soon through the AWRA Alaska Section website (http://state.awra.org/alaska/), and should plan to bring laptops for class exercises. For more details, please contact Colin Kikuchi (ckikuchi@usgs.gov).