The 2023 U.S. Supreme Court case of Sackett v. EPA drastically reduced the number of wetlands protected by the Clean Water Act, but there is no definitive interpretation of its impact.
The Court's opinion stated that wetlands must now have “a continuous surface connection” to federal waters, an approach that is not grounded in science and establishes tremendous uncertainty as to how this will be interpreted in the long term.
Hover over the map to view acres, percent, and flood storage1 of non-tidal wetlands at risk of losing federal protections based on potential interpretations of the Supreme Court's Sackett v. EPA majority opinion.
Use the map controls on the left to change the features and explore the impacts of different scenarios on federal wetlands protections.
Visit edf.org/wetlands for more information, and read the paper to learn more about the analysis.
Disclaimer: These results are estimates provided for informational purposes only and do not represent actual federal jurisdictional status as determined solely by the U.S. government. These results are only suitable for interpretation at large spatial scales due to resolution limitations in the underlying data. Jurisdictional determinations for specific wetlands or properties require higher-resolution data than used in this study and also typically require field visits.
1Conversion value of 1.5 million gallons of flood water per acre of wetlands. Environmental Protection Agency, Functions and Values of Wetlands, EPA 843-F-01-002c (2001). Link.