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Look up the water where you live

Water inequality is easier to understand when you can see it on a map. The tool below comes from the New Jersey Water Risk and Equity Map, built by Rutgers in partnership with Jersey Water Works and New Jersey Future. It layers water quality issues, flood risk, and infrastructure against demographic data across every municipality in the state.

Find your town.

How to use it
Turn on a layer category in the left panel, then zoom to your area. The Municipal Snapshot tool generates reports for any New Jersey municipality, covering built infrastructure, critical facilities, public health, and vulnerable populations. Each one summarizes what in that community is exposed to water-related risk.

What to look for
Start with your own town, then compare it with a neighboring one. The differences you find are rarely about geography. Older systems, lower tax bases, and less political leverage tend to show up in the same places.

What this map can and can't tell you
It shows general patterns of flooding, known water quality issues, and demographic trends, and it can point to where water risks concentrate. It is not for making flood zone determinations or design elevations, and a correlation on a map is not a conclusion. Establishing anything firm about a specific area takes more analysis than a map can do.

Source: New Jersey Water Risk and Equity Map, Rutgers University, with Jersey Water Works and New Jersey Future.

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