EPA’s Water Quality Scorecard was developed to help local governments identify opportunities to remove barriers, and revise and create codes, ordinances, and incentives for better water quality protection. It guides municipal staff through a review of relevant local codes and ordinances, across multiple municipal departments and at the three scales within the jurisdiction of a local government (municipality, neighborhood, and site), to ensure that these codes work together to protect water quality goals.

The two main goals of this tool are to: (1) help communities protect water quality by identifying ways to reduce the amount of stormwater that flows in a community and (2) educate stakeholders on the wide range of policies and regulations that have water quality implications.