GIS Coverages for Water Quality Standards and Assessment

The Bureau of Water Quality Standards and Assessment (BWQSA) is responsible for the development, adoption, and administration of New Jersey's Surface Water Quality Standards and Ground Water Quality Standards. BWQSA is also responsible for conducting and coordinating water quality assessments of all waters of the State, which are reported through the New Jersey Integrated Water Quality Monitoring and Assessment Report (Integrated Report).

These functions require the BWQSA to develop and/or apply a number of Geographic Information System (GIS) coverages that are also available to the public. These coverages include:

• Land Use/Land Cover
• New Jersey Stream Classifications (including Category One streams)
• Ambient Lakes
• Ambient surface water and stream quality
• Ambient biological monitoring
• Shellfish Harvest Waters
• Fish Assemblage (FIBI)
• Integrated Water Quality Monitoring and Assessment Reports
  • 2008
  • 2006
  • 2004

Stream classifications for waters of the State are available to the public through i-MapNJ DEP, the Department's interactive mapping tool. Instructions to determine whether a stream is designated as a Category One stream, and the associated stream classifications, are provided below. Please take note that i-MapNJ DEP does not include stream classification/antidegradation designation upgrades from October 16, 2006 and June 16, 2008 adoptions. Digital representations of stream classifications and antidegradation designations are available on the Department's GIS Web site and maps of adopted waters for the October 16, 2006 and June 16, 2008 adopted rule amendments are available from this Web site under SWQS Rule archives.

Instructions for Finding Stream Classifications Using iMapNJ DEP

1. Click on the i-MapNJ DEP link. (NOTE: You may have to deactivate "pop-up" blockers for this site to work.)
2. Click the “launch i-MapNJ DEP” button, which will bring up a map of the state with county boundaries.
3. Since the data layers of interest are only available when you are zoomed in, you must either use the “zoom in” button over a desired area or use the “find location of interest” feature at the upper right part of the screen.
4. Once you have zoomed, on the left side available data layers will become active (blue text rather than pale grey).
5. Select on the following boxes to make the data layers available. You may need to scroll down to find the appropriate layer:
1. Municipalities
2. Category One waters
3. Surface Water Quality Standards
4. Water Bodies
6. Each data layer selected will be displayed in the legend on the right side. Click on the “active” circle button on the data layers to select the layer to be identified. For this purpose, select the Surface Water Quality Standards layer to display: stream name, stream classification (FW1, FW2-TP, FW2-TM, FW2-NT, SE1, SE2, SE3, or SC) and antidegradation designation (C1) as appropriate. The Category One waters data layer will provide the same information but only if the stream is designated as Category One.
7. Add “subwatersheds – HUC14” as an active data layer to determine the area upstream of the Category One segment which may be subject to 300 foot buffers.

For more information, please contact the Bureau of Water Quality Standards and Assessment at (609) 777-1753.