Graham Resource Center Research Guide: Water Research

This database offers customized searches of water use. Covers all great lakes and surrounding states, including Illinois, for 1998 - 2008, by category of use. Search Great Lakes Surface Water withdrawals as well as uses of other water supplies, including groundwater, and download as a spreadsheet.

The USGS cooperates with local, State, and Federal environmental agencies to collect water-use information. USGS compiles these data to produce water-use information aggregated at the county, state, and national levels. Includes comparative analyses by water-use region.

Loads of information, such as a current flood map, a river stage summary table, USGS real-time precipitation data, flood surveillance, Lake Michigan water allocation tables, and more.

CMAP's Executive Summary provides an outline of the Water Plan and summarizes some of its major focus areas and recommendations: the methodology for determining regional water demands and supplies, the importance of integrating land-use and water supply planning, and demand management and other water-saving strategies.

Conducted by SIU Carbondale on behalf of CMAP, this study reveals important consequences of population growth for the region by the year 2050. It generates three water demand scenarios by major water user sectors and geographical subareas within the region. The scenarios represent water withdrawals under a current trends or "baseline" scenario (CT scenario) as well as under a less resource intensive (LRI) scenario and a more resource intensive (MRI) scenario. While the CT scenario assumes a continuation of recent trends for the variables modeled, resulting in a 36% overall increase in water withdrawals by 2050, the region's public water supply needs could grow up to 55 percent by 2050 under the MRI scenario.

This report aimed to determine the water-demand effects that would result from geographically differential patterns of population growth associated with different types of housing within the 11-county study area in Northeastern Illinois- but was unsuccessful due to the aggregated nature of the water-use data.

An expert-reviewed manual that explores full-cost pricing as a tool for local decision makers interested in sustainably managing community water supply.

Dynamic bibliographies on benchmark watersheds, CEAP studies, and more. Dynamic bibliographies can contain topic-related results from any searchable source. The term "dynamic" refers to the fact that a new bibliography is generated each time you use the link, so the bibliography's citations are always up-to-date.

A clearinghouse for bibliographies, treaties (such as the Ramsar Convention), and websites (such as one on hydric soils) dealing with wetlands.

Illinois State Water Survey's well depth monitoring for Illinois wells from the Water & Atmospheric Resources Monitoring Program and Illinois Climate Network. Daily and monthly data provides an indication of groundwater availability.

This education and advocacy group's website features news and information, as well as a concise glossary of groundwater terminology.

Users of the Source Water Assessment Program (SWAP) ArcIMS Mapping Tool can locate, create, and print maps of any size area within Illinois for use with SWAP issues.

The Illinois Water and Related Well Data Web mapping project enables on-line access to a large database of over 275,000 Illinois water and related well records. This database has been in development for many years by the Illinois State Geological Survey. Layers include bedrock topography, aquifers, karst areas, and more.

Maps of shallow gravel, shallow bedrock, and deep bedrock aquifers, their potential yields, well locations, and aquifer recharge. Produced by the Illinois State Water Survey.

Includes information on water, air, land, waste, toxics and radiation, monitoring/remediation programs by category, industries by category, specific chemicals by name. View lists or generate maps for a region, zip code, park, or body of water.

CMAP is the official regional planning organization for the northeastern Illinois counties of Cook, DuPage, Kane, Kendall, Lake, McHenry, and Will. CMAP developed and now guides the implementation of GO TO 2040, metropolitan Chicago's first comprehensive regional plan in more than 100 years. This page links to general information and opportunities.

The Great Lakes Restoration Initiative is the largest investment in the Great Lakes in two decades. A task force of 11 federal agencies has developed an action plan addressing five urgent focus areas:
cleaning up toxics and areas of concern; combatting invasive species; promoting nearshore health by protecting watersheds from polluted run-off; restoring wetlands and other habitats; and working with partners on outreach.

Public Act 96-26, the Green Infrastructure for Clean Water Act, requires the Illinois EPA to assess and evaluate using green infrastructure to help manage stormwater in Illinois. Illinois EPA is currently working with the University of Illinois – Chicago to undertake research to assess effective best management practices, green infrastructure standards and institutional and policy frameworks to support the development of a Green Infrastructure Plan for Illinois. The site lists contacts for involvement and advocacy.

SDWA was originally passed by Congress in 1974 to protect public health by regulating the nation's public drinking water supply. The law was amended in 1986 and 1996 and requires many actions to protect drinking water and its sources: rivers, lakes, reservoirs, springs, and ground water wells.

National water quality reports for surface and ground water, as well as individual water quality reports for each state

Documents related to pesticide discharge permitting, biosolids, combined sewer overflows, stormwater from construction, municipal, and industrial sites, and many related topics.

The City of Chicago's printable PDF map of community areas; 830 KB.

Printable ready-made maps in downloadable PDFs, created from demographic profiles, based on the both the Census 2000 short-form (Summary File 1 data) and long-form (Summary File 3 data), adapted from the U.S. Census Bureau's release on May 14, 2002. Each profile includes four tables labeled DP-1 through DP-4 that provide various population, housing, social, and economic characteristics from the 2000 Census.

PDF file of the City of Chicago's Aldermanic Wards, 1.05 MB.

View and download more than 400 datasets of the green infrastructure assets in our region; a map showing opportunities for cross-border acquisition, restoration and management along the Wisconsin-Illinois and Illinois-Indiana borders; or green infrastructure maps of the 19 counties studied, and more. A joint project of The Center for Neighborhood Technology and Openlands, with funding from The Joyce Foundation.

Maps of the United States Congressional Districts, Illinois House Districts, and Illinois Senate Districts. Downloadable PDFs.

Great UIUC page for Illinois GIS data sets and documentation (metadata) for ArcIMS Interactive Map Services, USGS digital topographic maps, aerial photography, orthoimagery, orthophotography, geology, land use, natural resources, and infrastructure. Illinois data sets and map data layers are available for download free of charge.