The Land Prioritization Mapping to Protect Drinking Water Quality (2025 Update) ranks land parcels in specific Mid-Atlantic states to protect drinking water quality and their potential to degrade long-term water quality.
The question asked in this five-year update remains the same as the original 2020 project, “Which parcels of land should be conserved to be most beneficial to drinking water?” However, the scope of this updated tool is much larger. Instead of focusing just on the Potomac River basin as the 2020 tool had done, the 2025 map was expanded to include the entirety of the states in which the basin sits—the District of Columbia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia.
This project provides a robust, data-driven framework for identifying parcels critical to drinking water source protection. By integrating multiple geospatial metrics and offering flexible visualization options, the tool supports informed land conservation decisions. High priority areas were identified across the study area and for individual counties for better usability. Users across the region can combine this drinking water perspective with other conservation priorities to identify win-win opportunities to achieve multiple protection objectives.
