CRWA AND GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS (GIS)

Watershed Maps | Project Maps | Interactive Online Mapping | OLIVER

What is GIS?

GIS is a powerful planning and analysis tool in that it relates information stored in a database to geographically referenced elements for interactive data querying, overlay visualization, and spatial analyses. 

CRWA uses GIS in many of its projects in a variety of ways from sophisticated water quality modeling to generating basic water quality maps.  Brief descriptions and examples of maps are provided below. 

CRWA GIS Staff

GIS analyses and data development are performed by Nigel Pickering, Senior Engineer/Watershed Modeler, David Kaplan, Watershed Scientist, and the current Rita Barron Fellow, Julie Wood.

Charles River Watershed Maps

GIS can be used at its most simple level to generate cartographic maps representing watershed features, their boundaries and spatial relationships.  CRWA frequently uses data created by MassGIS and other state and local entities, but also develops project-specific data in-house.  Below are some watershed maps created by CRWA:

Watershed hydrography and dam locations

Watershed land use

Charles River Watershed Association Projects - Specific Maps

• Environmentally Sensitive Urban Development
  CRWA is using our scientific, advocacy and coalition building experience to create a replicable process for environmentally sensitive urban development. The "Blue Cities Initiative" focuses on three distinct urban redevelopment areas: the Harvard Allston campus; the New Charles River Basin; and the Longwood Medical and Academic Area.
  

• Water Budgets - coming soon!
  CRWA is under contract to perform a statewide water budget analysis for every town in Massachusetts, allowing an accurate approach to analyze, quantify and account for water that enters and leaves a watershed, and determine the real sources of water problems.
  

• Total Maximum Daily Loads: Aquatic Vegetation Survey Maps - coming soon!
  

• REAL Planning
  Over a period of six years, CRWA has developed a land analysis methodology, we call Resource, Environmental, and Land (REAL) Planning, which has been referred to in its first iterations locally as "environmental zoning." REAL Planning identifies those land areas where development of any kind should simply be avoided. Maps for this project show priority conservation lands, current and future land use.
  

• Volunteer Monthly Monitoring
  More than sixty volunteers participate in one of the oldest and largest volunteer sampling programs in the country, collecting water samples, measuring depth and temperature, and recording river conditions at thirty-five sites along the river once a month. Color-coded maps created each month are based on water quality data, providing a visual representation of which areas of the river meet boating and swimming standards.

Interactive Online Mapping

MassGIS, Massachusetts Executive Office of Environmental Affairs, and Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection, among others offer interactive online mapping tools where you can search by address or zoom in and out to your site of interest.  Click on one of the hot links below to explore maps in the Charles River watershed.

• 2005 Color Aerial Photography - get a birds-eye view of the Charles River!

• USGS Topographical Maps

• Water Supply Protection Areas

• DEP Priority Resource Map (21E Sites)

• USGS Statewide Watershed Mapper

Want to explore more maps?  Check out MassGIS's online mapping home page.

MassGIS OLIVER   

For more advanced mapping and data viewing, try MassGIS’s OnLIne data ViewER, or OLIVER.  This will allow you to generate your own, personalized maps by adding and organizing MassGIS data layers and give you access to their attributes stored in the MassGIS database.  Data served here is downloadable in ESRI Shapefile and Raster formats.  In the near future, CRWA will develop its own, project-specific data available for viewing and downloading.  For a tutorial in how to use OLIVER, click here and scroll down to "Documentation".

If you have Java, click here to launch OLIVER and explore the Charles River Watershed! 
Don’t have Java?  Cick here to get it, then come back and click the above link