States have identified healthy waters and watersheds for protection. Click on the radio buttons for each individual state to learn more and view healthy watersheds layers for each state.
The map below shows a composite of all the state-identified healthy watersheds. Click on the radio buttons for each individual state to view additional healthy watershed layers.
Maryland
Through the Maryland Department of Natural Resources GreenPrint update, several key watershed-based conservation priorities have been identified based on monitored and modeled measures of health. In addition, the Maryland Department of the Environment has designated certain stream segments and their drainages for regulatory protection based on various measures of stream health and condition.
Maryland Healthy Watershed Definition: Tidal and non-tidal watersheds including those under regulatory anti-degradation protection and those with functioning habitats that support productive, diverse or unique populations of aquatic animals and plants that, collectively, provide the ecological services needed to protect downstream water resources.
(Source: Maryland Department of Natural Resources and Maryland Department of the Environment)
New York
The Waterbody Inventory/Priority Waterbodies List (WI/PWL) is an inventory of the state's surface water quality. The dataset provides a summary of general water quality conditions, tracks the degree to which a water body supports its designated uses, and monitors progress toward the identification and resolution of water quality problems, pollutants, and sources.
The category of "No Known Impact" represents "segments where monitoring data and information indicate that there are no use restrictions or other water quality impacts/issues."
(Source: New York State Department of Environmental Conservation)
Pennsylvania
Water quality criteria are used to protect designated water uses, such as fish and aquatic life, recreation, and water supply. Designated uses establish the reason for protection and the water quality criteria define the criteria required to protect that benchmark. Use designations and water quality criteria together constitute Pennsylvania Water Quality Standards as defined in Title 25 Environmental Protection, Department of Environmental Protection Chapter 93. As a starting point, existing or designated uses classifications of watersheds dominated by streams ranked Exceptional Value or High Quality were used to identify Healthy Watersheds within the Chesapeake Bay watershed of Pennsylvania. This watershed map layer (which is not part of the Water Quality Standards) is offered to provide a spatial representation of the Aquatic Life Use Tiers contained in the portion of the Pennsylvania Code referenced above. These spatial representations are intended to supplement the Water Quality Standards but should not be substituted for the official version of the standards found in the Pennsylvania Code.
Conservation Priority Watersheds are based on HUC 12 watersheds ranked in the top 10% (Tier 1) and top 20% (Tier 2) in Pennsylvania using using biological community classification, fish and macroinvertebrate biological metric scores, and least-disturbed stream reach analysis results.
(Source: Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection and Pennsylvania Natural Heritage Program)
Virginia
The goal of the Interactive Stream Assessment Resource (INSTAR) is to develop a complementary, synoptic, and geospatial database for fish and macroinvertebrate community composition and abundance at stream locations throughout the state, including larger (4th order or greater) non-wadeable streams and rivers. INSTAR, and the extensive aquatic resources database on which it runs, supports a wide variety of stream assessment, management, and conservation activities aimed at restoring and protecting aquatic living resources throughout the Commonwealth.
(Source: Virginia Commonwealth University Center for Environmental Studies)
West Virginia
All waters are assigned to specific tiers depending upon the level of protection necessary to maintain high quality and/or existing uses. The higher the tier, the more stringent the requirements are for protection. West Virginia categorizes waters into the following tiers:
Tier 1 - Maintains and protects existing uses of a water body and the water quality conditions necessary to support such uses. A waterbody that is listed as impaired on the states 303(d) list is considered a Tier 1 water as it pertains to the specific pollutant listed.
Tier 2 - Maintains and protects "high quality" waters - water bodies where the level of water quality exceeds levels necessary to support recreation and wildlife and the propagation and maintenance of fish and other aquatic life. Tier 2 is the default assignment for a waterbody not listed as impaired on the states 303(d) list.
Tier 3 - Maintains and protects water quality in outstanding national resource waters.
The Benthic Index of Biotic Integrity (B-IBI) data are shown in the map below as a proxy for the healthy watersheds coverage.
(Source: West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection)
