Watershed Restoration Suitability Model/Mapping Tool and Equity Assessment Mapping Tool

About the Program

Category: County Resiliency (Best in Category)

Year: 2021

The Montgomery County Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) is dedicated to improving stream health and water quality. With a county as diverse as Montgomery, our department strives to foster strong partnerships with communities and continue to evaluate our processes to address innovation and equity in our watershed planning and design. Our focus is cleaner water and restoring ecosystems naturally for our entire community. In 2019, the DEP initiated a program to geographically target the implementation of watershed restoration practices within the County using a Geographic Information System (GIS) suitability model, which incorporates best available science and data. DEP alsodeveloped an Equity Assessment map to identify potential areas to focus on environmental justice in the County and to ensure that watershed restoration is inclusive and equitable from project design through implementation and outreach and engagement. The resulting Stream Restoration Suitability, Stormwater Management Suitability, and Equity Assessment maps geographically target watershed restoration projects where they would have maximum impact by addressing a broad combination of programmatic goals. The DEP created a dedicated web page to explain the purpose of the maps, how the maps were developed, how to use the maps, including a link to the web mapping application.