Tool will help users find water quality reports
If you grew up swimming, fishing or boating in Kentucky’s waterways in the 80’s or 90’s, you knew then it wasn’t very easy to get information about water quality without knowing where to look.
And if you did know where to look, combing through a Water Quality Report to Congress was not a simple task. It was a complex, technical document and not very user friendly.
But the need for g
etting information in a more timely fashion, and technology upgrades have made getting data about water quality a simpler, faster process.
The Kentucky Division of Water has released the Kentucky Water Health Portal, an interactive-mapping application that allows the average citizen to quickly check on the health of a stream or lake in their community.
With the Water Health Portal you can simply visit the website, type in the area which
interests you and with a few clicks of the mouse you can learn more about the water quality of your favorite spot.
While viewing the Water Health Portal, you may have some questions, like what exactly is a TMDL? Or you might wonder about the purple star icon with OSRW inside. These questions, along with many others are answered in the recently produced document called Kentucky’s Water Health Guide. The guide breaks down the technical jargon and presents the complex topic of water health in a way that the average citizen can understand.
The Division of Water encourages you to discover the Water Health Portal and the Kentucky’s Water Health guide by visiting the website http://watermaps.ky.gov/WaterHealthPortal/.
On the site you can search for the waterbody you are interested, click on the stream or lake, and a dashboard will appear with color-coded icons visually telling the water’s health story. The last icon will be a question mark, and by clicking on that icon you will be taken to Kentucky’s Water Health Guide. The guide can also be found on the Division of Water’s website under the Watershed Planning program tab.
The Division of Water employs a committed staff of scientists who are continually collecting and assessing data from Kentucky’s waters. Through the development of Kentucky’s Water Health Guide and the Water Health Portal, the division is striving to make this information accessible and meaningful for all the citizens of the Commonwealth.
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