Percentage of Surface Drinking Water from Intermittent,
Ephemeral, or Headwater Streams in Vermont
Legend: This map highlights
regional patterns of
dependence on intermittent,
ephemeral, and headwater-
streams for surface drinking
water in Vermont. In Vermont,
1,820 total miles of streams
provide water for surface water-
intakes supplying public
drinking water systems; of this,
951 miles, or 52%, are
intermittent, ephemeral, or
headwater streams. Over
180,000 people in Vermont
receive drinking water from
public drinking water systems
that rely at least in part on
intermittent, ephemeral, or
headwater streams. This analysis
compared the stream length of
intermittent, ephemeral, and
headwater streams to total
stream length within all mapped
Source Protection Areas (SPAs)
for each county. A SPA is an
area upstream from a drinking
water source or intake that
contributes surface water flow
to the drinking water intake
during a 24-hour period. This is
based on data that generally do
not include streams less than
one mile in length. Intermittent
streams are streams containing
water for only part of the year.
Ephemeral streams flow in
response to precipitation
events. First-order streams have
been used to represent
headwater streams.
Data Sources: National
Hydrography Dataset Plus at
medium resolution; Federal
Safe Drinking Water-
Information System 4th Quarter
2006 Data.
Burlington
+
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Key:
Intermittent, ephemeral, and
headwater stream miles as
percentage of total stream
miles contained in all SPAs
for a given county
43%
48% - 56%
57% - 69%
69% - 84%
100%
0
5
10
20
30
40

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