Surface Water_Content Page_Surface Water Data Viewer

Surface Water Data Viewer

In order to keep DNR servers up to date, DNR will be patching the GIS servers to the latest service level on the morning of Sunday, September 28. During this update, users may see unexpected issues with DNR’s web map viewers. We apologize in advance for any inconvenience this may cause and ask that you revisit the site at a later time.

If you continue experiencing issues, please feel free to contact us via email. Thank you.

The Surface Water Data Viewer (SWDV) is a DNR data delivery system that provides interactive web mapping tools for a wide variety of datasets including chemistry (water, sediment), physical and biological (macroinvertebrate, fish) data.

This interactive web mapping application for surface water resources is an HTML5 web application that will work in all current browsers. The interface has tabs that group similar sets of tools (similar to MS Word or Excel). Other features include drawing tools, the ability to add a Shapefile or tabular dataset with latitude/longitude coordinates, as well as the ability to change coordinate systems.

Launch SWDV mapping application

Recent Updates

An enhancement update of SWDV was released 9/11/2025. Changes included:

  • Addition of a Layer Catalog Tool, a preselected set of layers available to add to the map.
  • Updates to “Upcoming Changes” panel.
  • Removal of several layers to improve the functionality of the SWDV and promote the use of other purpose-tailored viewers available from the DNR. These layers include:
    • Sediment layers (Impacts, Engineering Control Caps).
    • Some Assessments & Impairments layers (Impairment Source, Listing Status, NPS Rankings, Pending Changes).

The removed sediment layers are available in the Remediation & Redevelopment Viewer and Water Condition Viewer. The information in the removed Assessments & Impairments layers is available in the SWDV Assessment Unit (AUs) layer group.

These updates are the first of two large changes scheduled between July 2025 and May 2026 as part of an enhancement project. A maintenance change, an updated basemap, was also included with this release.

Themes

The SWDV has ten different themes. The default, titled “Default View,” is the general theme in which you manually select the data layers you would like to view. The other themes preselect data layers for you. Learn more about and explore the following available themes: 

Available Themes

Documentation