Welcome to the Indiana Water Quality Atlas
The Indiana Water Quality Atlas (IWQA) is an interactive mapping application to facilitate access to a wide variety of geographically-referenced data through a common interface for watershed management, land use planning, and water quality analysis purposes. This interface uses geographic information systems (GIS) and data modeling tools to focus specifically on Indiana’s water quality and how it is affected by land use change. Initially developed for IDEM by the Indiana University Polis Center, this application has been improved to provide for more Internet data services, such as, World Topography, Streets, and Boundaries Maps, and others created by a number of state and federal agencies and private GIS-focused companies. Also, added back into this latest version, local watershed data can be used with the Web-provided data including the recent addition of the U.S. EPA STORET warehouse data for Indiana.
To start working with this the IWQA tool, you’ll need to download the ESRI ArcGIS Explorer (AGX) freeware and IWQA application packages to your desktop.
- To download the AGX application, click on the name above and follow the directions for installing.
- Click on the IWQA link above to download the application. This application will customize your AGX package to develop maps for watersheds and water quality exploration.
- Once you have downloaded both programs and installed the AGX software, run the IWQA installation file by double clicking on it. It will install and establish a program link in your Programs directory (under Start) entitled Indiana Water Quality Atlas.
- To use the features and tools of the IWQA, open the application through Start > Programs > Indiana Water Quality Atlas > Indiana Water Quality Atlas. The IWQA Users Guide [DOC] will provide watershed coordinators and casual users with easy to follow instructions for using the new features and tools.
- To access the AGX software without the IWQA application, open AGX using the AGX world icon on your computer desktop. Still available as part of the tools are the Long-Term Hydrologic Impact Analysis (L-THIA) tool, the Watershed Delineator tool, and the Graphing capabilities. Also provided in this version are additional data services, base map options, and various map templates for watershed coordinators developing watershed management plans. These templates cross-reference with the 2009 Watershed Management Plan Checklist items requiring maps.
By using the L-THIA and Watershed Delineator (both developed at Purdue University), the other water quality data access, display and analysis, as well as the several other GIS-based resources services, the IWQA provides an application to effectively address Indiana’s water quality issues.
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