Citation:

Newcomer-Johnson, T., S. Thimons, S. Cormier, C. Wharton, M. Dunn, H. Ferriby, AND K. Salk Gundersen. Ohio Workgroup for Water Resources Monitoring Meeting: Freshwater Explorer 2.0: Exploring Water Quality Data Across the United States. Ohio Workgroup for Water Resources Monitoring Meeting (WWRM), Columbus, OH, March 26, 2026.

Impact/Purpose:

Data are essential to support freshwater Designated Uses, but the available water quality data are extensive, complex, and dispersed across various sources. As a result, stakeholders require accessible methods to find and understand national monitoring data. The purpose of the Freshwater Explorer is to provide an interactive platform for exploring freshwater quality across the United States. In Freshwater Explorer (Version 2.0), we have updated the semi-automated clean-up procedures to harmonize data from state and federal sources, aligning with OW’s TADA (https://www.epa.gov/waterdata/TADA) to provide summary statistics for approximately 289,000 streams, 10,000 lakes, and 50,000 groundwater wells. The Freshwater Explorer serves many purposes, including data extraction, visualization, analysis, strategic planning, and decision-making by states, farmers, and businesses.

Description:

EPA’s Freshwater Explorer is an easy-to-use, interactive web-based mapping tool for exploring freshwater data from streams, lakes, and groundwater wells in all 50 U.S. states, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. It includes both observed data points and estimated background concentrations to make it easy to identify areas where water quality has been impacted by human activities. It can be used by citizens and non-governmental organizations to better understand national and local water quality issues and to provide water quality information to help federal, state, territory, Tribal, and local partners make decisions about freshwater resources. Users can add spatial layers to explore associations between water quality measurements and natural and human geographical factors and any of the 10,000+ other available data layers accessible from the GeoPlatform that may affect water quality in the United States. This presentation at the Ohio Workgroup for Water Resources Monitoring Meeting in Columbus, OH will show users how to perform geographical searches and visualize background and measured data for water quality parameters. This combination of information is useful for states to work with communities and regulated entities to find the right balance of protection and use of fresh water.

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