The GSA has accrued an estimated 100,000+ hardcopy well records since being designated a repository for well data. Information in the records are derived from the ADEM Form 60, Notification of Intent to Drill a Water Well and Certification of Completion, submitted by well drillers/owners, historic records from the U.S. Geological Survey, and other official sources. In 2014, the GSA partnered with the Ground Water Protection Council (GWPC) to create a database, Risk-Based Data Management System-Environmental (RBDMS-ENV), for this information. The database focuses on technical data related to groundwater assessment in a broad, regional context. The GSA worked closely with the GWPC on selecting parameters for RBDMS-ENV. The completed alpha release of RBDMS-ENV was received in February 2015. The beta version of RBDMS-ENV was released to GSA in August 2015, with the final version of the database released to GSA in December 2015 and is currently operating on GSA internal servers.

The GSA Groundwater Water Well Finder is a geospatial ArcGIS Online interface to the RBDMS-ENV database. Clicking on a well symbol will display a pop-up window that contains available data, such as location data, well construction information, water level data, geochemical data, and stratigraphic data. If wells were unable to be located to the exact property with the information provided, locations are estimated based on the township, range, and section, and quarter-quarter section (if provided). Wells located in the field by GSA are marked with 'GPS' location accuracy. If latitude and longitude are provided on well records, the wells are marked as 'Provided by Entity'. Wells previously located by the USGS are noted as such. At this time, approximately 50% of the original hardcopy records have been included in RBDMS-ENV.

The Water Well Finder has a number of display and search features that are positioned around the periphery of the display. A general search can be performed by entering a well name or address in the search bar at the upper left of the display. Zooming, default extent, and “my location” are located on the left side of the display. A latitude and longitude indicator and scale bar can be found at the lower left. The three buttons at the bottom of the screen can be used to access a legend, a layer list, and a water level chart (hydrograph). A map of aquifers in Alabama, the public land survey grid, and a grid featuring USGS 7.5-minute topographic map boundaries can be accessed through the layer’s pop-up window. Clicking on the water level chart will open a pop-up window. Clicking on a well symbol will display available water level information for that well in the window. An attribute table of data from RBDMS-ENV can be accessed from the button in the lower right of the display in conjunction with selecting information in the layers list. Data can be downloaded on a limited basis through the attribute table options. Three active buttons in the upper right corner of the display access Add Data, Basemap Gallery, and Advanced Search features. A variety of data can be added to the display through the Add Data pop-up window; including a variety of remote sensing platforms (requires an ArcGIS online account), data from other web services accessed through a URL, and user-defined project shape files. The Basemap Gallery contains additional base maps available from ESRI (these do not require an account to access). The Enhanced Search feature allows searching by different user-defined shapes and spatial buffers, by facility name (RBDMS-ENV designation), and spatial relationships.

As previously noted, data displayed through the Water Well Finder and RBDMS-ENV are incomplete and do not represent the entire record collection on file at the GSA. Additions to the RBDMS-ENV are ongoing as time permits. Additions to the database will be available in the Water Well Finder as they are made. Digital copies of records on file at the GSA are available though Well Records portal.