Did you ever wonder where the water gets into the aquifer? The Recharge Zone! There’s a large strip of land throughout West Tennessee where water can get into the Memphis aquifer. Here are a few resources to help understand the Recharge Zone.
The Memphis aquifer (Memphis Sand Aquifer) is part of the Mississippi embayment aquifer system that covers portions of eight states. It's a pretty big system with lots of water. However, for those of us in Tennessee only a small band of West Tennessee serves as the Recharge Zone. So what is that? Well, it's an area where rain water can infiltrate into the ground and refill our aquifer. That's pretty important considering all of West Tennessee relies on groundwater for everything from industry to irrigation to drinking water...everything.
So protection of this area is critical to sustaining our aquifer both the amount of water in the aquifer as wells as its quality. And we have some of the best water in the world! So, as we develop in West Tennessee we need to keep the Recharge Zone in mind and develop responsibly. Once you start paving over that recharge zone, water can't get it and we may find ourselves in a bit of a pickle if we're not too careful.
The Recharge Zone and how water gets into the system varies from place to place. Learn about West Tennessee recharge.
How is Tennessee securing the future of it's groundwater resources? Find out through the TN H2O Plan Groundwater Chapter!
Here's some information from the U.S. Geological Survey about the Memphis and Fort Pillow aquifers as well as some info on the deeper Cretaceous aquifer system. It's shows it's extent throughout West Tennessee and its characteristics.
Learn about local recharge from our friends at the University of Memphis CAESER!
