Some of these decisions are EPA's. 2 of these 299 records carry a Clean Water Act cleanup plan EPA established rather than North Carolina. They are counted in every figure on this page, and each record page names which.
State water-quality picture · #29 by reported lake-type waterbodies
North Carolina lakes and reservoirs
Every figure on this page is computed from the assessment decisions North Carolina reported to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under Clean Water Act sections 303(d) and 305(b) (reporting cycles 2014–2022), plus daily water-level observations from the U.S. Geological Survey.
- 299
- Reported waterbodies
- 90
- Not supporting a use
- 28
- Fish use not supporting
- 0
- Gauged lakes
North Carolina in one line
299 lake-type waterbodies in North Carolina are reported to EPA ATTAINS across reporting cycles 2014–2022: 90 assessed as not supporting at least one designated use, 62 fully supporting, and 147 without a definitive overall verdict. The most-listed impairment cause is Chlorophyll-a - Aquatic Life Use Support, on 57 waterbodies.
- 299
- reported waterbodies
- 90
- not supporting a use
- 62
- fully supporting
- 59%
- of definitive verdicts impaired
An unassessed waterbody is neither confirmed clean nor confirmed impaired; states assess on multi-year cycles.
North Carolina runs more USGS gauges than most states, but few are lake-linked
18 USGS gauges operate in North Carolina, the upper third of all states by raw instrument count — yet only 0 of the state's 299 lake-type units carry a gauge link. Most of that monitoring network serves rivers and streams, not this inventory.
Data updated 2026-08-17
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's ATTAINS program, North Carolina reported 299 lake-type waterbodies in North Carolina in the August 2026 extract. See our methodology for filer attribution and multi-year reporting cycles.
Overall-status mix on North Carolina's mid-size inventory
Every reported lake-type unit in North Carolina falls into exactly one overall-status bucket. This bar is the inventory partition; the cause chart and national gauge below answer different questions.
Most-listed impairment causes in North Carolina
Waterbodies carrying each listed cause, most first
- Chlorophyll-a - Aquatic Life Use Support
Chlorophyll-a - Aquatic Life Use Support
57 waterbodies
- PCBs - Fish Consumption Advisory
PCBs - Fish Consumption Advisory
26 waterbodies
- pH, High 16
pH, High
16 waterbodies
- Turbidity 15
Turbidity
15 waterbodies
- Nitrogen, Total 14
Nitrogen, Total
14 waterbodies
What this shows Chlorophyll-a - Aquatic Life Use Support is the most-listed impairment cause in North Carolina, on 57 of the lake-type waterbodies reported there.
Computed share from EPA ATTAINS filed records, not an official EPA rating or safety grade.
North Carolina: 59% of ruled verdicts are not-supporting, against a national share of 53%, 1.1× the national rate.
Reporting practice
North Carolina's definitive-verdict share, by the numbers
Each reporting authority decides how much of the water it files to EPA it actually assesses in a cycle. That decision sets the denominator behind every count on this page.
North Carolina holds the 29th-largest reported lake-type inventory in the country, 299 assessment units, carrying a definitive verdict on 50.8% of it. The counts above describe the 152 units carrying a verdict, not all 299 reported. North Carolina has also retired 17 lake-type assessment units, superseded filings that are kept on the site but not counted here.
The states reporting at the nearest rates are North Dakota (51.8%) and Colorado (47.4%).
Assessing more of an inventory is a reporting choice, set by cycle length, monitoring budget and how finely a state splits its waters into units. It is not a measure of water quality, and it is why a raw count from one state does not sit beside a raw count from another. How assessment coverage varies.
North Carolina against every comparable state
Share of reported lake-type waterbodies carrying a definitive verdict
50.8% 33rd of 47 higher than 14 of 47 states
the 47 comparable states, by definitive-verdict share
Each bar is a band; taller bars hold more states. The dashed line + filled bar mark this entry. Hover or tap any bar for its full count and share, and where it sits relative to this entry.
Source EPA ATTAINS · Reporting cycles 1987–2026
Each bar counts states whose definitive-verdict share falls in that 10-point band. The 47 states shown are those reporting at least 25 lake-type units; a share off a smaller inventory is precision the data does not have.
By size
Largest assessed lakes in North Carolina
By assessed acreage as reported in ATTAINS. Acreage is the assessed unit's size, which can differ from a lake's full surface area.
| # | Waterbody | Assessed acres |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | CATAWBA RIVER (Lake Norman below elevation 760) Not Supporting | 31,332 |
| 2 | Phelps Lake Fully Supporting | 15,938 |
| 3 | Albemarle Sound Not Supporting | 15,600 |
| 4 | Nutbush Creek Arm of John H. Kerr Reservoir (below normal pool elevation 300 feet MSL or as this elevation may be adjusted by the Corps of Engineers) Fully Supporting | 9,690 |
| 5 | Lake Waccamaw Fully Supporting | 8,840 |
| 6 | ROANOKE RIVER (Lake Gaston below normal full power pool elevation 200 MSL) Fully Supporting | 7,965 |
| 7 | YADKIN RIVER (including Tuckertown Lake, Badin Lake) Assessment unit NC12-(124.5)c1 Fully Supporting | 7,938 |
| 8 | YADKIN RIVER (including Tuckertown Lake, Badin Lake) Assessment unit NC12-(124.5)c2 Not Assessed | 7,263 |
| 9 | CATAWBA RIVER (Lake James below elevation 1200) Fully Supporting | 5,811 |
| 10 | LITTLE TENNESSEE RIVER (Fontana Lake below elevation 1708 MSL) Not Assessed | 5,568 |
| 11 | HIWASSEE RIVER (Hiwassee Lake below elevation 1525) Not Assessed | 5,030 |
| 12 | New Lake Not reported | 4,981 |
By cause count
Most-listed waterbodies in North Carolina
Waterbodies carrying the most listed impairment causes among the lake-type units reported by North Carolina.
9 of the 10 rows in this table tie on the ranked value: 3 at 6 (rank 1), 2 at 5 (rank 4), 4 at 3 (rank 7). Tied rows share a rank and are listed in no meaningful order; where a tie reaches the top the medal is shared, because nothing separates those rows.
States with similar inventory scale or impairment load
Two EPA ATTAINS peer sets outside North Carolina. The reporting-practice chart above stays on definitive-verdict share; these neighborhoods are cross-state nearest neighbors on register size and not-supporting counts.
States with a similar reported inventory
Nearest states by lake-type units on the register (299 here).
Peers are nearest-neighbor matches on EPA ATTAINS register size and not-supporting counts among states with at least 25 reported units. Impairment peers skip states already listed in the inventory column so the two link sets stay distinct.
Using this state picture
- Comparisons across states hold on shares, not counts: 50.8% of the inventory reported from North Carolina carries a definitive verdict, 33rd of 47 comparable states. National rankings
- Fish-consumption verdicts here are assessment decisions. Species-level meal advice comes from the state fish-advisory program. Consumption guide
- Browse every named North Carolina waterbody with a populated record. Browse waterbodies
PlainLakes renders state assessment decisions and federal gauge observations without modification.
Figures on this page are computed from the assessment decisions North Carolina reported to EPA's ATTAINS system and from USGS National Water Information System daily values, no number is typed in by an editor. State counts aggregate every lake-type assessment unit reported by North Carolina, including unnamed units that never receive their own page. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error. Data current as of 2026-08-17. Primary sources: EPA ATTAINS and USGS National Water Information System.