How Does an Aquifer Work? An aquifer is filled with moving water and the amount of water in storage in the aquifer can vary from season to season and year to year. Ground water may flow through an aquifer at a rate of 50 feet per year or 50 inches per century, depending on the permeability.
http://imnh.isu.edu/digitalatlas/hydr/concepts/gwater/aquifer.htm
Ground water has to squeeze through pore spaces of rock and sediment to move through an aquifer (the porosity of such aquifers make them good filters for natural purification.
http://imnh.isu.edu/digitalatlas/hydr/concepts/gwater/aquifer.htm
aquifer noun [C]. › a ​layer of ​rock, ​sand, or ​earth that ​contains ​water or ​allows ​water to ​pass through it. (Definition of aquifer from the Cambridge Advanced Learners Dictionary & Thesaurus © Cambridge University Press).
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/aquifer
Recharge occurs both naturally (through the water cycle) and through anthropogenic processes (i.e., artificial groundwater recharge), where rainwater and or reclaimed water is routed to the subsurface.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groundwater_recharge
An underground layer of permeable rock, sediment, or soil that yields water. Aquifers can range from a few square kilometers to thousands of square kilometers in size.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/aquifer
Groundwater recharge is an important process for sustainable groundwater management, since the volume-rate abstracted from an aquifer in the long term should be less than or equal to the volume-rate that is recharged.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groundwater_recharge
by Colin McIntosh, The Cambridge English Dictionary is constantly being updated and expanded to reflect the interests of our users. One area of particular interest to our users is that of English Language Teaching (ELT), and a number of ELT terms have recently been added to the dictionary. We’ve added some of the words that learners of English might. Read More ►.
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/aquifer
Groundwater recharge or deep drainage or deep percolation is a hydrologic process where water moves downward from surface water to groundwater. Recharge is the primary method that water enters an aquifer. This process usually occurs in the vadose zone below plant roots and is often expressed as a flux to the water table surface.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groundwater_recharge
Groundwater is recharged naturally by rain and snow melt and to a smaller extent by surface water (rivers and lakes). Recharge may be impeded somewhat by human activities including paving, development, or logging.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groundwater_recharge
The boundaries of an aquifer are usually gradational into other aquifers, so that an aquifer can be part of an aquifer system. The top of an unconfined aquifer is the water table. A confined aquifer has at least one aquitard at its top and, if it is stacked with others, an aquitard at its base. figure 1. Click on image for larger view. Figure 1 shows an example of an aquifer system in the lower Portneuf River valley.
http://imnh.isu.edu/digitalatlas/hydr/concepts/gwater/aquifer.htm
define aquifer
An aquifer is a ​layer of ​rock, ​sand, or ​earth that ​contains ​water or ​allows ​water to ​pass through it.