# Stormwater Atlas

> U.S. stormwater design manual requirements in one place — an ongoing open project with structured, evidence-cited JSON anyone (or any AI) can fetch. No API key.

Website: https://stormwateratlas.com/
About & examples: https://stormwateratlas.com/about/
Federal drainage guidance: https://stormwateratlas.com/federal/
Practice synthesis: https://stormwateratlas.com/national/

## Machine-readable data

- Index (lightweight): https://stormwateratlas.com/data/manuals.json
- One manual: https://stormwateratlas.com/data/manuals/{slug}.json
- Full atlas dump: https://stormwateratlas.com/data/atlas.json
- Field guide: https://stormwateratlas.com/data/schema.json
- Practice synthesis outline: https://stormwateratlas.com/data/national/outline.json

Each record includes jurisdiction metadata, design criteria (storm return periods, water-quality volume method, peak-flow methods, software, BMP categories), verbatim evidence excerpts with page/section, extraction confidence, and source PDF / agency URLs.

The `/national/` reader is a **U.S. Stormwater Practice Synthesis** (research draft) — not a design manual or adopted regulation.

## Suggested uses

- Compare design storms or BMP lists across states and cities
- Look up a jurisdiction and return the cited quote for a field
- Filter manuals that mention a method, software package, or BMP type
- Browse synthesized practice guidance with atlas-backed citations

## Important

Data is for research reference only. Always verify against the current official agency document linked in each record. Some extracted fields may need human review.

The `needs_human_review` flag in JSON means an automated extraction had low confidence or incomplete citations — compare excerpts to the official PDF; it is not a volunteer review program. See https://stormwateratlas.com/about/#needs-review

Open-source community project (actively developed). MIT license: https://github.com/scott-jeffers/usa-stormwater