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EPA Resources to Help You Achieve Your Net Zero Goals

EPA has several resources and tools available to help you achieve your net zero water, energy, and waste goals.

Sustainable Decision-Making Resource

EnviroAtlas is an online decision support web-based tool that states, communities, and citizens can use to help inform policy and planning decisions that impact the places where people live, learn, work and play. EnviroAtlas combines maps, analysis tools, fact sheets, and downloadable data into an easy-to-use, web-based resource that allows users to understand the implications of various decisions and their potential impacts on ecosystems.

Water Management Resources

Green Infrastructure Modeling Toolkit contains innovative models, tools, and technologies for communities to manage urban water runoff. The models and tools in this toolkit incorporate green infrastructure practices to help communities manage their water resources in a more sustainable way, increasing resilience to future changes, such as climate and extreme events. The toolkit contains the following models and tools:

  • National Stormwater Calculator is a desktop application that estimates the annual amount of rainwater and frequency of runoff from a specific site anywhere in the United States (including Puerto Rico), and includes a cost module. Estimates are based on local soil conditions, land cover, and historic rainfall records.

  • Storm Water Mamagment Model (SWMM) is a software application that is used widely throughout the world for large-scale planning, analysis, and design related to stormwater runoff, combined and sanitary sewers, and other drainage systems in urban areas—although there are many applications for drainage systems in non-urban areas as well. It allows users to represent combinations of green infrastructure practices to determine their effectiveness in managing runoff. SWMM was developed to help support local, state, and national stormwater management objectives to reduce runoff through infiltration and retention.

  • Watershed Management Optimization Support Tool (WMOST) is a user-friendly public-domain software application designed for local water resources managers and planners to screen a broad range of water management options to evaluate cost-effectiveness, and environmental and economic sustainability. WMOST utilizes user-input data to calculate the optimal watershed management practices to achieve goals such as meeting water demand, stormwater management, and reduced flooding.

  • Green Infrastructure Wizard (GIWiz) is an interactive, web-based green infrastructure search wizard that connects people to specific tools and resources that fit their particular needs and interests. It provides users with seamless access to around 300 existing EPA resources, including models, calculators, and case studies. GIWiz is organized around common questions and objectives associated with green infrastructure decision-making.

  • Visualizing Ecosystems for Land Management Assessment (VELMA) is a computer software model that regional planners and land managers can use to quantify the effectiveness of natural and engineered green infrastructure management practices for reducing nonpoint sources of nutrients and contaminants in streams, estuaries, and groundwater. These practices include riparian buffers, cover crops, and constructed wetlands.

Waste Management Resource

Managing and Transforming Waste Streams -- A Tool for Communities allows users to explore 100 policy and program measures communities can implement to increase diversion and promote waste reduction and materials reuse across waste sectors. Implementation examples from communities and online resources are also accessible. This tool can provide decision support to municipal staff and decision-makers working on solid waste plan updates or Net Zero waste plans, regional agencies coordinating waste management planning for a group of communities, or other interested parties familiar with their community's solid waste management system.