A lot of people think groundwater aquifers are big underground lakes and that surface lakes and rivers get all their water from rain and snowmelt flowing across the land.

Don Rosenberry

In fact, groundwater normally is packed between grains of sand and gravel or captured in cracks in bedrock. And – especially in winter – rivers get most of their flow from groundwater discharge.

White Bear Lake, where pumping from municipal wells has been blamed for drying up huge parts of the lake, has become a graphic illustration of the interaction between ground and surface waters.

Join us on Thursday, June 6, for a free public lecture by Don Rosenberry on the importance of the groundwater connection  — in  the shrinking White Bear Lake, in other lakes and streams across Minnesota,  and beyond. Register to attend.

Rosenberry, a U.S. Geological Survey hydrologist with Minnesota roots, has spent his career researching the groundwater-surface-water connection in waters across the country.  He will talk about the physical, chemical and biological processes linking groundwater and surface water and their impact on humans during floods and droughts.

Rosenberry’s lecture, titled Not Just for Scientists Anymore: Why the Public Should Care About the Connection Between Groundwater and Lakes, Streams and Wetlands, will be sponsored by the Freshwater Society and the University of Minnesota College of Biological Sciences.

The lecture will be at 7 p.m. in the theater of the Student Center on the university’s St. Paul campus.