US EPA - Resilient Strategies Guide

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency needed a digital tool that could help drinking water, wastewater, and stormwater utilities identify risks from natural disasters and service disruptions, and then guide them through strategies to build resilience. The challenge was translating a complex framework of planning priorities, vulnerable assets, potential strategies, and funding sources into an intuitive, self-service web application. The tool needed to feel approachable for utility operators of all technical levels while handling a significant amount of interconnected data behind the scenes.

We built a custom single page application on top of Drupal CMS using PHP, JavaScript/jQuery, HTML5, and CSS3. The SPA architecture allowed us to create a seamless, step-by-step experience that walks users through the full resilience planning process without page reloads. We designed a custom filtering system that dynamically narrows down relevant priorities, assets, strategies, and funding sources based on each utility's specific inputs like utility type, state or territory, and population served. At the end of the guided flow, users can generate a comprehensive PDF report containing all of their selections and detailed descriptions, giving them a tangible deliverable to take back to their teams. The progress bar and modular step design keeps users oriented throughout what could otherwise be an overwhelming amount of information.

The EPA gained a public-facing tool that makes resilience planning accessible to utilities nationwide. The guided experience reduced the barrier to entry for smaller utilities that may not have had the resources to navigate complex federal guidance on their own. The dynamic filtering ensured that users only see the most relevant information for their situation, and the PDF report generation gave them a ready-made document to share with stakeholders and use for internal planning.