Great Lakes Water Analysis Tool

Safe drinking water isn’t guaranteed—even in America. This tool helps people understand how water infrastructure funding is allocated across the Great Lakes region. The interactive mapping platform transforms complex policy rules into an accessible interface where users can explore eligibility criteria, compare scenarios, and visualize real-world impacts—supporting more transparent and equitable investment in clean water.

Project Highlights

  • Collaborated with water policy experts and stakeholders to design an analytical tool that helps users understand local and state-wide water infrastructure funding and explore impacts of policy shifts.
  • Led user research and iterative usability testing that informed user-centered design decisions throughout the project cycle.
  • Transformed complex, multi-state funding criteria into an intuitive interface users can explore, compare, and modify.
  • Data visualization
  • Interactive maps
  • User-centered design process
  • Website Design
  • Wireframing

Project Partners

  • Center for Neighborhood Technology
  • Environmental Policy Innovation Center

Who uses this?

  • Policymakers & Researchers
  • Local governance
  • Community leaders
  • Community-based organizations

Visit the website:

dacmappingtool.cnt.org

Who gets to drink clean water?

A simple question with a complex answer.

Across the Great Lakes region, many communities live with unsafe water—not because solutions don’t exist, but because funding rules are confusing, and in some cases just don't apply where they probably should.

I designed this tool to make those rules more understandable and empower people to explore what policy changes would result in a more equitable future.

Core Capabilities

The tool empowers everyday residents, community advocates, policymakers, and researchers to:

  • Understand how each state defines “Disadvantaged Communities” (DACs)
  • See which areas do qualify for Drinking Water State Revolving Fund (DWSRF) investments
  • Compare funding definition criteria across states
  • Test how alternative definitions or criteria would change real-world outcomes

Instead of static reports, users get a living interface to explore the equity impacts of water policy decisions.

 

Making Complexity Accessible

Water funding policy is filled with technical terminology, formulas, and exceptions that even experts struggle to interpret.

My goal was to build a tool that policy professionals could rely on—while remaining approachable to everyday residents who may wonder why their own community lacks safe water and feel encouraged to get involved in community advocacy.

Working closely with subject matter experts, I:

  • distilled dense regulatory language into plain-language explanations
  • designed interactive visualizations that replace spreadsheets and PDFs
  • integrated tooltips, glossaries, and contextual help to guide new users

The result is a platform that invites exploration rather than intimidation.

 

What a Difference a Change Can Make

Small policy details can have enormous real-world consequences.

For example, the City of Harvey, Illinois fails to qualify for water infrastructure funding assistance because its reported population sits just one person above the eligibility threshold. Despite meeting every other criterion by sizable margins, the entire city is excluded.

 

By combining robust demographic data, eligibility rules, and interactive mapping, the tool allows users to see these inequities instantly and build evidence-based arguments for more equitable outcomes.

I designed features that let users:

  • adjust eligibility criteria to instantly see how qualifications change
  • compare one state’s criteria with those used by other states
  • visualize changes at local and statewide scales
  • explore “what-if” scenarios to support advocacy and policy discussions

These features help users see exactly how policy changes could impact the equitable distribution of funding.

 

More Context Through Data

To deepen understanding, I incorporated additional spatial layers that highlight:

  • communities with documented water violations
  • areas with special policy provisions
  • cumulative impact burdens across eight categories, including climate, health, housing, transportation, and legacy pollution

These layers give users a fuller picture of how funding decisions intersect with real community needs.

 

Outcome

The Great Lakes Water Analysis Tool equips advocates and decision-makers with a clearer, more transparent way to evaluate water funding policy—helping drive more equitable investment in safe drinking water.

 

Visit the website:

dacmappingtool.cnt.org