Potential public water-supply areas of the Cape Cod aquifer, Massachusetts, were identified using a geographic information system (GIS) to aid regional and local ground-water resource management efforts. Criteria were selected to identify potential areas on the basis of data restrictions in addition to State requirements for siting new public water- supply wells, Federal or local restrictions on land use, and general hydrogeologic or water-quality concerns. Data layers were created for each criterion and overliad to eliminate areas from consideration as potential public water supplies. Remaining areas, those not included within the applied criteria, are the primary areas to consider for potential public water supplies. The areas identified in this analysis as potential public water supplies range from 0.5 to 7.9 percent of the individual flow cells, or 5.6 percent of the total flow cell area. The criteria were ranked so that criteria more limiting to potential public water supplies were given a higher rank than other criteria. The ranking scheme allows for the inclusion of areas with lower ranked criteria as potential public water supplies. Results can be viewed on a plat in this report, or accessed using the map-based, menu-driven GIS application, which provides interactive display and query of investigation results.
