FAQs: EPA Merrimack River Watershed Story Map
- What is the Merrimack River Watershed Story Map?
- Why did EPA create the Merrimack River Watershed Story Map?
- Why focus on the Merrimack Watershed?
- What information is featured in the Story Map?
- How can I access the Merrimack River Watershed Story Map?
- How can I get more information about the Merrimack Watershed?
1. What is the Merrimack River Watershed Story Map?
The Merrimack River Watershed Story Map is an easy-to-use interactive mapping tool that brings together important geospatial data relevant to environmental conditions in the Merrimack watershed.
2. Why did EPA create the Merrimack River Watershed Story Map?
EPA created the Story Map to serve as unique mapping resource and potentially as a collaboration platform for hundreds of watershed stakeholders. This Story Map offers a tool that allows users to customize layers of existing data to help visualize some of the watershed's greatest challenges and attributes.
3. Why focus on the Merrimack Watershed?
EPA created the Story Map because the Merrimack River is one of New England's most important but threatened waterways. The watershed is a recreational resource for nearly 200 communities and 2.6 million people and is the primary drinking water source for about 550,000 people in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. The vast two-state watershed covers 5,010 square miles and is home to a variety of sensitive species and habitats. Water quality in the Merrimack is degraded by land development, CSOs from aging infrastructure, and pollution.
4. What information is featured in the Story Map?
The Story Map highlights important environmental, public health and land development information. Each section features a relevant scenario to exhibit some of the data and capabilities of the mapping tool. Section 6 features a customizable mapping platform that allows users to pull data from a large layer list to create your own map.
These scenarios were chosen to illustrate the capabilities of the mapping tool.
- An overview of the Watershed that shows Combined Sewer Overflows (CSOs), Wastewater Treatment Plants, and locations of communities that use the Merrimack River as their source of drinking their water;
- CSO locations and information for Greater Lawrence Sanitary District
- Flood risk and demographic information for the coastal community of Newburyport, Massachusetts (including storm scenarios); and
- Land development information.
5. How can I access the Merrimack River Watershed Story Map?
You can access the Story Map here or https://tinyurl.com/y6xjbzha.