New Castle County Water Resource Protection Area Mapping
Since 1987, the University of Delaware has administered the Water Resource Protection Area Program for New Castle County. The purpose of the WRPA ordinance in the New Castle County Unified Development Code is to protect the quality and quantity of surface water and groundwater supplies. Under the Unified Development Code, all development within recharge, wellhead, Cockeysville formation, and reservoir water resource protection areas are required to meet maximum impervious cover thresholds (20% to 50%) and may require groundwater recharge facilities, water monitoring, and water management facilities. Presently, over 20% of New Castle County land area is protected by the WRPA provision of the Unified Development Code.
WRPA Mapping
In 1987, New Castle County adopted the Water Resource Protection Area (WRPA) Ordinance, since then the maps to support this ordinance have gone through three revisions. This ordinance is contained in the New Castle County, Delaware, Unified Development Code (UDC) and protects environmentally sensitive areas that are very important to the state's water supply and water quality. These maps depict several data layers that represent four main categories of water resource protection areas in New Castle County, Delaware. These categories are; Cockeysville Formation, Wellhead WRPA, Surface Water WRPA and Recharge WRPA. These maps serve as a decision-making tool in water resources protection areas in New Castle County, Delaware. The maps are available for downloading and printing at your convenience.
- New Castle County UDC Resource Protection Standards (47K)
- Section 40.10.380 Water Resource Protection Area (WRPA) (84K)
Final 2011 WRPA Maps for New Castle County, Delaware
- Map 1, Northern New Castle County, December 2011 (pdf 10MB)
- Map 2, Central New Castle County, December 2011 (pdf 6.7MB)
- Map 3, Southern New Castle County, December 2011 (pdf 6.5MB)
To download the Water Resource Protection GIS Data Layers go to our public ftp site.
Don't have GIS, view the WRPA data below using ArcGIS Online.
2006 WRPA Maps for New Castle County, Delaware
- Map 1, Northern New Castle County, February 2006 (12MB)
- Map 2, Central New Castle County, February 2006 (4.5MB)
- Map 3, Southern New Castle County, February 2006 (6MB)
For more information regarding the New Castle County Water Resource Protection Area maps
please contact Gerald Kauffman, Director of the Water Resources Agency at the University of Delaware, 302-831-4929.
Water Management Agreement Project
The University of Delaware, Institute for Public Administration - Water Resources Agency is conducting research and mapping the groundwater recharge facilities authorized by water management agreements in New Castle County. We are assembling a GIS - based data base and mapping all (we estimate over 150) of the groundwater recharge facilities and water management agreements authorized under New Castle County code since 1990. Under the Unified Development Code, all development within recharge, wellhead, Cockeysville formation, and reservoir water resource protection areas are required to meet maximum impervious cover thresholds (20% to 50%) and may require groundwater recharge facilities, water monitoring, and water management facilities. We started this analysis when the UD semester began in September 2008 and will submit the results to New Castle County by the end of the semester in January 2009.
