Relation of Hydrologic Processes to Groundwater and Surface-Water Levels and Flow Directions in a Dune-Beach Complex at Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore and Beverly Shores, Indiana

The potential for high groundwater levels to cause wet basements (groundwater flooding) is of concern to residents of communities in northwestern Indiana. Changes in recharge from precipitation increases during 2006–9, water-level changes from restoration of nearby wetlands in the Great Marsh in 1998–2002, and changes in recharge due to the end of groundwater withdrawals for water supply since 2005 in a community at Beverly Shores, Ind., were suspected as factors in increased groundwater levels in an unconfined surficial aquifer beneath nearby parts of a dune-beach complex. Results of this study indicate that increased recharge from precipita- tion and snowmelt was the principal cause of raised water levels in the dune-beach complex from 2006 to 2009.