North Dakota water profile
Too little of North Dakota reports to describe North Dakota
92 of North Dakota's 305 active community water systems have a current nitrate result here — 30.2% of the state. That is not enough to describe a state, and this page does not try.
None of the 92 that do report is at or above 3.00 mg/L as N. That is a fact about 92 systems. It is not a fact about North Dakota, and the difference matters: a sample this small can look calm while the unsampled majority does not, or look alarming because the systems that report are the ones with a reason to.
The missing systems are a sourcing gap on this end. They have not been shown to be low, and they have not been shown to be high — they have not been read.
North Dakota is left unshaded on the national map, because shading it would put a number on the map that the underlying reporting cannot support. Coverage is expected to grow as more sources are gathered, and this page will say something different when it does.
The 92 North Dakota systems that do report →
Coverage is uneven between states and is shown as it is rather than smoothed over. Where it is incomplete, and why.
Meanwhile
What the rest of the country reports
The national map covers 38,762 community water systems across 47 states. See where human impact is clear, or read what the breaks at 1, 3, 5 and 10 can and cannot tell you. The general science — how nitrate moves, why some ground is vulnerable, and why the legacy lingers — is on Where nitrate comes from.