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A new online tool allows Marylanders to more easily see whether their neighborhood streams are polluted and, if so, what pollutants are fouling the water.
MDE’s Water Quality Mapping Center also displays potential sources of pollution, and it shows which stream segments are of especially high quality. And you don’t need special training or GIS software to use it.
An on-line tutorial provides guidance on using the Mapping Center.
MDE envisions a wide range of users, including those from academia, advocacy organizations, all levels of government and the media, along with interested citizens. The maps can be used to inform many different water quality planning efforts, including those taken to meet the Chesapeake Bay Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) and Watershed Implementation Plan.
The Mapping Center allows MDE to more easily update its many data layers, saving the Department both time and money and providing users with greater accuracy.
Every two years, MDE’s Science Services Administration (SSA) is responsible for producing and submitting to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency the State’s Integrated Report of Surface Water Quality. This report must meet requirements of sections 305(b) and 303(d) of the federal Clean Water Act in providing water quality assessment information for all Maryland surface water. MDE is also responsible for enforcing the State’s anti-degradation policy with the purpose of protecting its highest quality, or Tier II, waters.
Information gathered as part of the Integrated Report and anti-degradation efforts is used for several purposes, including water quality restoration projects, protection of healthy waters through requirements imposed in the state’s permit process and support of local land use planning. It is essential that organizations be able to view this information in a geographic context to understand the spatial relationships between sources of pollutants and their water quality impacts.
SSA created a series of interactive online web maps that display the health of Maryland waters with respect to over 30 different pollutants, including bacteria, nutrients and toxic metals. Another map series displays Tier II streams and their corresponding drainage areas. The user will initially see generalized watershed information at the statewide scale. After zooming in, the watershed information will disappear and be replaced by stream-level information.
The pollutant maps generally display impaired waters as red and orange while green is reserved for those waters that meet water quality standards. In addition to this basic information, the pollutant maps provide details about water quality assessments and include links to applicable TMDL documents. These documents provide in-depth analysis of water quality and set pollutant load limits for achieving state standards.
The Tier II maps show Maryland’s known high-quality stream segments and their drainage areas, or “catchments,” throughout the state over an aerial photo background. The user can click on the segments or the catchment to see such information such as Tier II stream name, year of designation and watershed code.
Users can change a map’s background -- choosing, for example, aerial photography or topographic maps -- and search for locations by address. Users can also overlay information by clicking on a link at the bottom of the map and searching for layers of interest. For example, users may be curious to see whether water quality impairments tend to be more prevalent near major highways or other land uses. By adding a highway or other land-use layer to the map, users then have visuals that they can share with others.
A computer with an Internet connection is all that is needed to view and interact with this geographic information. To take full advantage of the capabilities of these maps, it is recommended that users have the latest-version internet browser, such as Internet Explorer 9.
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