Groundwater is a major component of the Nation’s water supply, and groundwater monitoring is an essential tool for characterizing and managing this vital resource. The goal of this conference is to showcase recent developments in all phases of groundwater monitoring, including the design of monitoring networks, the analysis and interpretation of monitoring data, the communication of monitoring findings, and the role of monitoring in groundwater management and groundwater policy. The Conference will address such topics as:

• Design of groundwater quality monitoring networks on multiple scales, from detailed monitoring of contaminant sites to water-quality assessment on a statewide or national scale;
  
• Monitoring for assessing groundwater supplies and forecasting changes in basin storage;
  
• Role of monitoring in protecting and managing groundwater resources;
  
• Integration of monitoring with groundwater policy development;
  
• Statistical techniques for analyzing and interpreting monitoring data;
  
• Role of monitoring in groundwater modeling and model calibration;
  
• California’s Groundwater Ambient Monitoring and Assessment (GAMA) program and the USGS’s National Water Quality Assessment (NAWQA) program;
  
• Monitoring approaches for non-point source pollutants;
  
• Strategies for monitoring hydrologic processes in the vadose zone;
  
• Methods for collecting and managing groundwater data; and
  
• Communication of groundwater monitoring findings to the public and to policy makers.

Abstracts are invited for oral or poster presentations relevant to the topics listed above. Submissions describing monitoring case studies are welcome. Should you have any questions, please feel free to contact the Conference co-chairs, Eric Reichard (egreich@usgs.gov) or Brian Wagner (bjwagner@usgs.gov).

Guidelines for submitting an abstract for an oral or poster presentation are as follows:

• Word 9.0 documents are preferred.
  
• Abstracts must be one page in length or less, and should be titled and include all contributing authors' names and affiliations.
  
• Please identify the name of the person who will be presenting the paper or poster, and add biographical sketches of the authors as a second page. The biosketches should be 50 words or less in paragraph form, and full mailing and e-mail addresses should be included in addition to other contact information (phone and fax numbers).
  
• Authors are required to indicate the topic for which the abstract is being submitted.
  
• Margins should be 1-inch top, bottom, and right side and 1¼-inch left margin. The text should be single-spaced, 10-point size, Arial font, with no pagination, footers and headers. Paragraphs should be justified.
  
• Major headings should be 12-point bold; minor headings should be 10-point italicized but not bolded. There should be one blank line above and below all headings, except above major headings which should have two blank lines.
  
• Graphics should not be used in abstracts.
  

Call for Abstracts Deadline November 15, 2008: By virtue of submitting an abstract, the submitter(s) grants GRA the right to publish any accepted abstract or the right to decline any abstract. Please submit your abstract by e-mail to Mary Megarry (mmegarry@nossaman.com; 916-446-3626) no later than November 15, 2008. A team of volunteers made up of GRA members will review abstracts and make the final selections.

Exhibitors: Hach Environmental | Solinst Canada Ltd.

Sponsors and Exhibitors: GRA is pleased to invite participants to sponsor Conference functions or to exhibit at the Conference. Please contact Mary Megarry at mmegarry@nossaman.com or 916-446-3626 for more information.

Sponsorship and Exhibitor Information Packet