Field Devel­op­ment Plan is a design doc­u­ment that estab­lish­es tech­ni­cal meth­ods and vol­umes of extrac­tion and use of nat­ur­al ground­wa­ter resources, loss stan­dards, and meth­ods for pre­serv­ing these resources dur­ing oper­a­tion.

The tech­ni­cal plan (flow­sheet) regard­ing ground­wa­ters is a tool for man­ag­ing ground­wa­ter resources and has the fol­low­ing main objec­tives:

Assess­ment of the water bal­ance. The plan makes it pos­si­ble to assess the lev­el of avail­abil­i­ty and con­sump­tion of ground­wa­ter resources. It takes into account para­me­ters such as abstrac­tion rates, reserves, recharge, and dis­tri­b­u­tion of ground­wa­ter, which helps to under­stand the over­all hydro­log­i­cal sit­u­a­tion in the stud­ied area.

Deter­mi­na­tion of opti­mal resource use is achieved by estab­lish­ing opti­mal meth­ods for using ground­wa­ter in var­i­ous sec­tors, such as drink­ing water sup­ply, indus­tri­al needs, agri­cul­ture, and oth­ers.

Fore­cast­ing impacts on ecosys­tems. The tech­ni­cal plan (flow­sheet) con­sid­ers the impact of ground­wa­ter use on nat­ur­al ecosys­tems. It makes it pos­si­ble to assess poten­tial con­se­quences of ground­wa­ter lev­el decline, degra­da­tion of aquat­ic ecosys­tems, and changes in the water regime. This helps in mak­ing informed deci­sions aimed at pre­serv­ing the nat­ur­al envi­ron­ment and bio­di­ver­si­ty.

Devel­op­ment of con­ser­va­tion and restora­tion strate­gies. Based on the obtained data and analy­sis, strate­gies for the con­ser­va­tion and restora­tion of ground­wa­ter resources can be devel­oped. This may include mea­sures for ratio­nal water use, imple­men­ta­tion of water-sav­ing tech­nolo­gies, pro­tec­tion of drink­ing water sources, and devel­op­ment of mea­sures for restor­ing degrad­ed aquat­ic ecosys­tems.

Mon­i­tor­ing and con­trol. This makes it pos­si­ble to time­ly iden­ti­fy changes in ground­wa­ter lev­els that may be relat­ed to water use, nat­ur­al fac­tors, or anthro­pogenic activ­i­ties. Based on mon­i­tor­ing data, cor­rec­tive mea­sures can be tak­en to main­tain sta­ble and effec­tive water resource man­age­ment.

The devel­op­ment project rep­re­sents sub­stan­ti­at­ed tech­ni­cal and eco­nom­i­cal­ly ratio­nal solu­tions and effec­tive mea­sures for the oper­a­tion of a ground­wa­ter deposit using water intakes and wells. The project is pre­pared and approved in accor­dance with the require­ments of reg­u­la­to­ry and legal acts of cur­rent leg­is­la­tion — the Sub­soil Code of Ukraine, the Land Code and the Water Code, as well as the Laws of Ukraine “On Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion”, “On Drink­ing Water and Drink­ing Water Sup­ply”, “On Archi­tec­tur­al Activ­i­ty”, res­o­lu­tions of the Cab­i­net of Min­is­ters on the “Legal Regime of San­i­tary Pro­tec­tion Zones of Water Bod­ies”, stan­dards of the State Geo­log­i­cal Ser­vice, build­ing codes, and state san­i­tary norms regard­ing ground­wa­ter qual­i­ty and safe per­for­mance of works.

The time­frame for prepa­ra­tion and approval of the tech­ni­cal plan (flow­sheet) regard­ing ground­wa­ters may vary depend­ing on the size and com­plex­i­ty of the project, data avail­abil­i­ty, the size of the stud­ied area, and oth­er fac­tors. Typ­i­cal­ly, the process of prepar­ing a tech­ni­cal plan (flow­sheet) can take from sev­er­al months to one year.

• Col­lec­tion and analy­sis of ini­tial data.
• Cal­cu­la­tion of para­me­ters of the hydro­ge­o­log­i­cal sys­tem, such as the size and trans­mis­siv­i­ty of the aquifer, ground­wa­ter move­ment, etc.
• Deter­mi­na­tion of ground­wa­ter flows and bal­ance.
• Envi­ron­men­tal impact analy­sis.
• Selec­tion of opti­mal solu­tions and mea­sures. This may include estab­lish­ing water use regimes, devel­op­ing mea­sures for ecosys­tem pro­tec­tion and restora­tion, imple­ment­ing effi­cient water use tech­nolo­gies, and oth­er mea­sures.
• Devel­op­ment of an imple­men­ta­tion plan for the tech­ni­cal plan (flow­sheet) regard­ing ground­wa­ters. This plan includes the sequence of mea­sures, resources required for imple­ment­ing tech­no­log­i­cal solu­tions, and iden­ti­fies respon­si­ble par­ties for their exe­cu­tion.
• After imple­men­ta­tion of the tech­ni­cal plan (flow­sheet), sys­tem­at­ic mon­i­tor­ing of ground­wa­ter con­di­tions and the envi­ron­men­tal sit­u­a­tion is car­ried out.

This plan pro­vides for tech­no­log­i­cal­ly and eco­nom­i­cal­ly jus­ti­fied effi­cient oper­a­tion of the water intake in the long term to pre­serve the qual­i­ta­tive chem­i­cal com­po­si­tion of ground­wa­ter, pro­tect the deposit from deple­tion and con­t­a­m­i­na­tion dur­ing long-term oper­a­tion, and can be used as a basis for sub­stan­ti­at­ing invest­ments in the con­struc­tion and arrange­ment of water intakes, as well as their oper­a­tion and imple­men­ta­tion of geo­log­i­cal and tech­ni­cal mea­sures using mod­ern tech­nolo­gies.

• a plan for ground­wa­ter abstrac­tion and con­sump­tion;
• a pro­gram of regime obser­va­tions at the water intake (deposit area) of ground­wa­ter.

Thus, with the help of the tech­ni­cal plan (flow­sheet), the sta­tus of the water intake using ground­wa­ter and the respon­si­bil­i­ty of the sub­soil user for main­tain­ing the prop­er con­di­tion of the pro­duc­tive aquifer, adja­cent aquifers, as well as envi­ron­men­tal safe­ty with­in the area of the sub­soil user’s activ­i­ty, are approved. The main con­di­tion for safe and sta­ble devel­op­ment of a ground­wa­ter deposit area is not to exceed the reserves declared by the plan.

Opti­mal ground­wa­ter man­age­ment requires an inte­grat­ed approach and the use of spe­cial­ized ser­vices such as the Tech­ni­cal plan (flow­sheet) regard­ing ground­wa­ters. This ser­vice is pro­vid­ed by water man­age­ment orga­ni­za­tions and spe­cial­ized con­sult­ing firms with the aim of ratio­nal use and pro­tec­tion of ground­wa­ter resources. One such orga­ni­za­tion is the Insti­tute of Geol­o­gy, which is ready to devel­op a project (tech­ni­cal plan / flow­sheet) for the devel­op­ment of a ground­wa­ter deposit at the high­est tech­ni­cal lev­el.