Water Condition Viewer
The Water Condition Viewer (WCV) is an interactive mapping tool that focuses on water condition, monitoring, assessment and management data. Data includes Clean Water Act, Monitoring Projects, Monitoring Stations and Data, Targeted Watershed Assessments, Wastewater Evaluation, Watershed Planning, County Land and Water Plans, Nine Key Element Plans and more.
- Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) [PDF]
FAQ related to the Surface Water Data Viewer and Water Condition Viewer. This document can also be accessed directly from within the viewer, under the "Help & Resources" tab.
Water Condition Viewer Uses
Water Quality Assessments
The WCV displays detailed information on Clean Water Act assessments including the locations assessed (station and Assessment Unit (AU)), parameter results (e.g., Total Phosphorus, Chloride) and water condition lists (Impaired, In Restoration, Attaining Standards). Assessments are from the most recent two-year assessment cycle and use data from the past 5 – 10 years.
Find more assessment information on the following webpages:
- Assessment Process
- WisCALM (assessment guidance)
- Current Water Condition Lists
- Current Water Quality Report to Congress
Planning
The WCV displays the location of multiple water quality plan types including Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL), Nine Key Element, County Land & Water, Water Quality Management and Targeted Watershed.
The Targeted Watershed Site Selection Tool (TWSST) supports decision making for monitoring study design. The TWSST helps biologists select appropriate sites for monitoring in Targeted Watershed Assessment projects.
- More about TWSST
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TWSST is a watershed-scale classification system that groups stream reaches according to a variety of stream channel and landscape-level physical characteristics. The physical characteristics in the classification system were selected to incorporate both natural and anthropogenic factors with demonstrated relationships with water quality and aquatic biota. These characteristics include land cover, soils, slope, streamflow volume and water temperature.
The TWSST model can be used to aid in setting up an efficient monitoring design in a watershed where very little recorded information exists on waterbody condition. The model can also be used on previously collected data to determine the spatial extent on a stream network that a particular monitoring location represents.
The output from the TWSST includes maps of the stream groups, narrative interpretations of each stream group and summary statistics of stream characteristics within groups. These results are available as summary reports for each watershed and as interactive map layers in DNR's WCV. This provides staff and biologists a readily accessible way to visualize landscape changes in targeted watersheds alongside a variety of other data layers relevant to the monitoring site selection process.
TWSST, Version 1.0 (June 2015)
Wastewater Evaluation
For Wastewater Evaluation use the map displays outfalls, variance permit sites, "variance" water quality standards waters and all other water quality standards. In addition, the state's impaired waters, O/ERW waters and trout waters are shown.