What is the Stormwater Heatmap?

The Stormwater Heatmap is an interactive mapping tool, report generator, and data repository that quantitatively visualizes hotspots of pollution generation and runoff throughout the Puget Sound watershed.

The mapping tool is designed to support stormwater planning at multiple scales - from large watershed to local neighborhoods. The pollution heatmaps provide new and rigorous insight into where stormwater infrastructure investments are needed in order to buffer against the adverse environmental impacts of stormwater pollution to people and nature.

All spatial data layers, images, and reports are downloadable for use outside of the online tool, and all code is open source. Included in this heatmap is data on precipitation, landcover, landuse, soils, hydrology output, and a variety of other datasets. To learn more about the foundational data layers in this heatmap, visit the [technical report page of this website](02_Technical Reference).

Please note: the pollution heatmap models are best suited for strategic management decisions wherein the relative loading of different pollutants is more important than the estimated load quantity itself.