Stormwater is spatial. Your compliance software should be too.

Most public works teams already maintain their authoritative GIS in ArcGIS Online, ArcGIS Enterprise, or QGIS. That work belongs there. NPDESTracker is the operational layer for the compliance program that runs against that data, not a duplicate system asking your GIS staff to re-key everything.

Outfalls, BMPs, and sites can come in from your existing layers as GeoJSON or shapefile. Coordinates and per-feature attributes are preserved on import. When data needs to flow back out for state-agency submittals or QA inside ArcGIS, CSV exports cover supported operational records, with broader spatial-format export support available during onboarding and support requests.

NPDESTracker is developed by Wood Technologies LLC, a Startup Partner in the Esri Partner Network. Connected ArcGIS workflows are available today: a named user signs in with their own ArcGIS account, and NPDESTracker reads their maps and layers read-only, without writing to them. File imports, exports and the standard coordinate systems described on this page remain supported alongside it. The full posture, including how sign-in works, what the read-only boundary covers, how agencies stay isolated from each other, and where each kind of data is stored, is on the ArcGIS integration and security page.

When your team uploads a GIS layer to NPDESTracker, the original file is preserved separately from the map-optimized display layer the workspace uses to draw features in a browser. Display layers may be optimized for browser performance on large datasets, while the original uploaded file is retained where it was provided.

That separation matters for two practical reasons. First, browsers are not the right tool for rendering millions of attributes on every feature, so the display copy is shaped to stay responsive on a coordinator's laptop. Second, the file your GIS staff handed over should still be the file your GIS staff can get back, untouched by display-time trimming.

Data ownership stays with the customer. NPDESTracker is designed so cities can export their records in standard formats, and the same posture applies to GIS uploads: the original is what gets handed back if you ever leave or move the data elsewhere.

Structural BMPs are some of the hardest assets for a small program to keep current. They sit on private parcels, ownership shifts, and the spreadsheet that tracked them often does not survive a staff transition. NPDESTracker keeps the BMP inventory on the same map as the rest of the program, so the type, ownership, last inspection, and maintenance status are visible the moment you open a parcel.

Imports come in from your existing GIS layer or from a CSV with coordinates. Inspections and maintenance records attach directly to the BMP, which means the MCM 5 section of the annual report is reading from the actual asset list rather than a year-end reconstruction.

For more on how BMPs go missing from municipal inventories and what a defensible BMP record looks like, see the post-construction BMP tracking guide.