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Tool T04 · Water Budget
Every day, water enters the Memphis Sand Aquifer (recharge, leakage) and leaves it (pumping, discharge to rivers). When outflows exceed inflows, the aquifer depletes. Play with the dials. Find where the balance tips.
MGD = million gallons per day. MLGW withdraws about 200 MGD. The natural recharge from the recharge zone is estimated at 240 MGD, with additional leakage through breaches bringing total inflows close to 280 MGD.
Historically, before heavy pumping, most of that recharge discharged as baseflow to streams like the Loosahatchie and Wolf rivers. Today, heavy pumping intercepts much of that flow — which is why those rivers' baseflow has dropped over the past century.