Water Assets and Water Budgets
| Background: In 2001 EOEA did a series of Build-out Analyses for the cities and towns in Massachusetts. These studies looked at the potential for residential and commercial development in each community under an "open-ended" growth scenario based on current local zoning. In other words, they estimated how much development could take place "by right" without regard to how quickly that development was likely to happen. These studies accounted for obvious constraints on development such as conservation, wetlands and steep slopes. Besides showing where development might occur, the Build-outs also projected the resulting demand for local services such as education and water supply. These Build-out analyses were presented to decision makers in each of the Commonwealth’s 351 cities and towns to help them consider potential impacts of future development and, implicitly, to support the discussion of alternatives. The follow-up project, Water Assets, focused on potential future demands for public water supply. |
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| Water
Assets Maps One component of the EOEA Water Assets studies for local communities was a series of maps showing the development status of water supply protection areas.  MassGIS will be posting an interactive map to show what lands are developable and how they are zoned in relation to a number of critical environmental resources, including current and future drinking water supplies. |
Water Assets: In the fall of 2004, as a follow-on to the Build-Out Analyses, EOEA released individual Water Assets Reports for 130 municipalities in one of the most rapidly growing areas in the state, the I-495 beltway. The individual Water Assets reports were designed to provide local officials with a detailed understanding of current and future patterns of water use. Current demand for each community was compared to DEP permitted and/or registered volumes to determine a regulatory “capacity” to meet future demands. These comparisons did not take into account future water supply development – they simply highlighted whether or not communities would be able to meet any projected additional demand for public water supply under current conditions. Additionally, through a series of GIS maps, each report presented information on how existing and future land use might impact water supplies and critical habitat. Then in the summer of 2006 EOEA released the Water Assets Study: Regional Summary Report. This comprehensive review of water use in the same I-495 beltway summarized by watershed the information previously given to the local communities. It clearly indicated that while in most cases the public water suppliers currently have sufficient resources to meet the yearly average demands of their customers within regulatory limits, the average daily demand for water during the peak month of use strains local supplies during the commonly drier months of July and August. Additionally, under the build-out scenario, most communities would exceed their existing permitted and/or registered volumes, posing a potentially significant challenge of reconciling their future use and management practices with regulatory limits. |
| Water Budgets: At the same time as the regional summary report was being issued, a new series of studies, called Water Budgets, was being designed to address the question of whether the patterns of use identified in the Water Assets reports were sustainable. The purpose of this new project was to quantify the impact on surface water of current and potential water demands in communities throughout the Commonwealth. The Water Budgets assessment is intended to support long-term public water supply planning, within the context of achieving protection of aquatic ecosystems and minimizing stress on natural flows. Where Water Assets focused primarily on the demand side of the equation and the impact of present and future land use on water supplies, Water Budgets takes a broader look at the human impact on surface water bodies of all water and wastewater infrastructure including those systems which move water between subwatersheds thus short-circuiting the natural hydrological cycle. The result is an assessment of where there are subwatersheds under stress. With the Water Budget in hand, communities can better understand the impact of withdrawals and discharges in specific watershed areas. In planning for the future, they can consider the impact of new well location and extended wastewater infrastructure, and seek ways to improve the overall hydrologic balance. Water Budget reports will be under development through June 2008, and will be accessible through this web page as they become available. |
Water Budget Maps  This graphic shows the overall summertime stress level and the contribution of various factors such as withdrawals, sewerage etc. in the subwatersheds of the Stonybrook watershed |
| To download Water Assets
regional
studies (in PDF format), click on the watershed name in the list below: |
To download
the Water Budget study
(in MS Word format) for a community, click on the city or town name in the list below: |
To download the Water
Budget study
(in MS Word format) for a subwatershed, click on the watershed name in the list below (Report
Appendices also available in this list): |
Last Updated 5/7/2007
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