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Mission & methodology

Why this site exists, and how it’s built

Environmento is an independent, volunteer-run education project. It is not affiliated with Howard County government, and it is not a substitute for the county’s official tools.

Mission

Make the county’s own data legible

Howard County already collects and publishes serious climate, flood, and other such data. However,the issue is that it's not for someone who just wants to know if their street floods, if their neighborhood runs hot, or what’s being done about either one.

This site is meant for those everyday people. Every claim made in this website is backed by our sources listed below!

Methodology

Where the data comes from, and its limits:

  • Sources used
    Exactly three: Howard County Climate Forward (climateforward.howardcountymd.gov), the Howard County Open Data / GIS portal (data.howardcountymd.gov and opendata.howardcountymd.gov), and the Maryland iMAP GIS Data Catalog with FEMA flood maps (data.imap.maryland.gov and mdfloodmaps.net). No other datasets, models, or estimates are used.
  • How hotspots are chosen
    Every entry on the hotspots map is a location specifically named in at least one of the sources above. NOTE: the "Severity labels" came from the source material itself, and isn't something made up.
  • What this site doesn’t do
    It does not generate new flood models, does not make proper predictions, and does not replace the DFIRM viewer or FEMA flood maps for insurance or permitting purposes. Anywhere this site says "flood risk," treat it as a pointer to go check the official map for your address, but not a definite.
  • Update cadence
    Content is reviewed against the three sources on an ongoing basis. Hotspot data lives in a single file (data/hotspots.json) so it can be corrected or expanded without touching page markup. This page and the site footer show the date of the last review.
  • Last updated
    2026-08-17
    • Contact

    Corrections and questions

    Spot something out of date, or a source that’s changed? This is a community project and corrections are welcome!

    environmentocreator@gmail.com

    Privacy

    What this site does with your data

    Right now, Environmento collects no personal data. No contact form, no accounts, no cookies, etc. Visiting this site doesn’t send anything about you anywhere beyond what every website’s server log records by default.

    However, the Hotspots map: those tiles load live from OpenStreetMap’s own servers, which is just how embedded maps work. That request goes straight from your browser to OpenStreetMap, not through us. Their privacy policy covers how they handle it.

    If we ever add a contact form, email signup, or analytics, we’ll rewrite this section first, before that feature goes live, to say exactly what gets collected, why, how long we keep it, and who sees it.

    Sources

    1. Howard County Office of Community Sustainability, Climate Forward dashboard. climateforward.howardcountymd.gov
    2. Howard County GIS / Open Data portal. data.howardcountymd.gov · opendata.howardcountymd.gov
    3. Maryland iMAP GIS Data Catalog and FEMA flood maps. data.imap.maryland.gov · mdfloodmaps.net