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A Quick Look at U.S. Water pH

A Quick Look at U.S. Water pH

I was curious what the distribution of recorded water pH looks like around the U.S., so I made a quick county-level map. It is not a perfect tap-water map, but it is a useful bit of background texture.

2024 Water Quality Portal pH observations, summarized by county median.

The data comes from the Water Quality Portal. Caveat: those observations can come from rivers, reservoirs, wells, estuaries, and other monitoring sites, not just municipal taps. Some counties are sampled heavily and others barely show up.

For growing, this is just a curiosity map. There is no replacement for measuring your own pH at the tap, in the reservoir, and after nutrients are mixed.

County medians do not show how many samples contributed or how representative they are. Until sample counts and monitoring-site types are available alongside the map, use it as a view of the available observations, not a county ranking or a forecast of local tap water.