By Lara Mulvaney for the Edgewater/Davidsonville Patch (reposted with permission of Edgewater-Davidsonville Patch.com)
My inner map geek is singing.
Did you know you can easily find information about your property and your community in interactive maps available on the Anne Arundel County Government's website? Much better than a regular map, these online interactive maps are actually a geographic information system (GIS) display, with a whole database of information stored within the map.
So, how does this help you?
Well, I'm helping my neighbor plan a rain garden to build this spring. There are a lot of things to think about when taking on a project like this. But instead of running down to the county office buildings to get all the information I will need to plan the garden, I will instead sit comfortably in my office, and thank the folks at the Public Works Watershed Ecosystem Restoration Services Program, for making all of this information available at my fingertips.
This tool, called the Watershed Mapping Application, can turn on and off the different layers of information to be graphically displayed on the map. You can measure distances and areas of map features. Most importantly, you can reveal the information data tables behind the map.
Want to do a property search? Figure out how large your specific roof is? Estimate how much of your lot is impervious? Find out the type of soil on your property? Curious about the condition of the nearby streams? Want to see the extent of the Critical Area in your neighborhood? It's all just a few clicks away.
With a little practice, you can learn to negotiate the dashboard and drive through amazing displays of maps, diagrams, photography, measurements, and help make some real decisions. From this information, you might determine how many rainbarrels your house might need, where to site a raingarden, or learn where backyard streams flow.
Developed to help Master Watershed Stewards work on restoration projects within their communities, publicize collected environmental information, the Watershed Mapping Application online data is always changing as new information becomes available. It has a disclaimer too, for its accuracy, but nonetheless, it's a great tool to begin understanding how each house, community, and business fit into the whole stormwater pollution picture—and what you might be able to do about it.
Not sure what a watershed is?
If you live in Anne Arundel County, you live in one.
A watershed is an area of land, sometimes called a "basin" that drains to a particular river, lake, bay or other body of water. When it rains, all of the water that falls onto the land in a watershed drains into its waterway. All rain water not absorbed by porous surfaces or slowed and cleaned by rain gardens, rain barrels, marshes, etc, wash contaminants such as nitrogen, phosphorus, bacteria from pet waste and dirt with it when it drains.
Watersheds are broken up into smaller segments called sub-watersheds. Anne Arundel County has 12 watersheds, and 354 sub-watersheds. If you live in Edgewater, you are in either the South River or Rhode River Watershed. If you live in Davidsonville, you may live in either the South River or the Patuxent River Watershed.
More information on the Watershed Mapping Application, and your watershed is available at www.aacounty.org/dpw/watershed/index.cfm.
For a user's guide on the WERS Watershed Mapping Application, information on sustainable landscapes, the issues surrounding the impacts of stormwater and what you can do to help, visit the Watershed Stewards Academy new website www.aawsa.org.
The South River Federation also has a very capable and user friendly online map to explore the South River. This resource, supported by can be accessed at www.southriverfederation.net, or http://www.imrivers.com/southriver.
So take a few minutes, use these new tools, and maybe you'll discover something interesting about your property, your neighborhood, or your river.
Oh, yeah...and maybe it'll make your inner map geek happy too.
Lara Mulvaney is Master Watershed Steward for the South River.
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