Munimetric
Source-backed, peer-relative municipal water-system stress monitoring with a municipal-fiscal overlay.
What Munimetric is
A structured monitoring platform that consolidates fragmented audit, compliance, infrastructure, and financial signals into source-backed, explainable outputs. Designed for ongoing monitoring of community drinking-water systems with an emphasis on clarity, comparability, and structured interpretation.
What it produces
A deterministic MISI score (0–100), structured signal events, system profiles with peer context, a public screener, configurable watchlists, and recurring reports — each traceable to identified public records and gated by data confidence.
System Architecture
From public records to structured monitoring outputs
EPA SDWIS compliance records, Census ACS demographics, municipal financial disclosures, infrastructure needs assessments (DWINSA, CWNS), SRF loan data, rate filings
Connectors, provenance tracking, raw asset storage, consistent field normalization, confidence tagging
Deterministic scoring engine, signal generation, entity resolution, peer-cohort assignment
MISI, Signals, Profiles, Screener, Watchlists, Munimetric Brief, Munimetric Review
Each stage preserves source provenance and exposes confidence explicitly.
Munimetric Infrastructure Stress Index (MISI)
- Type
- Deterministic, threshold-based composite
- Range
- 0–100 (higher = more stress)
- Structure
- Five families, each contributing 0–20 points
- Peer context
- Tracked as percentile and cohort label; does not alter score
- Confidence
- Weighted factor availability plus mapping confidence, stored per score
Live scoring currently runs MISI v0.1.2. This version keeps the same five-family deterministic structure and the same interpretation decomposition while applying frozen-reference variance controls and a single-factor guardrail to reduce saturated-factor dominance in comparative rankings. MISI remains a blended structural stress composite rather than a pure physical-condition measure.
Current archive citation: Howell, S., & Munimetric. (2026). Munimetric Infrastructure Stress Index (MISI) Methodology v0.1.2 (0.1.2). Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19770285. Record: zenodo.org/records/19770285. Concept DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.19595312
Confidence & Data Handling
- Source-backed outputs
- Every score, signal, and profile element traces to an identified public record with provenance metadata.
- Explicit missing data
- Missing inputs are stored and surfaced explicitly — never fabricated or imputed without disclosure.
- Confidence gating
- Low-confidence scores are flagged in the interface and excluded from public “top stressed” lists unless manually approved.
- Public eligibility
- Of 9,512 scored markets, 9,268 meet the confidence and readiness threshold for public exposure.
Design Principles
Reporting Standard
Every Munimetric report answers three questions
- What changed
- Score movement, new signals, data refresh events
- Why it matters
- Structural interpretation relative to system condition
- Compared to whom
- Peer-cohort context with percentile positioning
Product Scope
Munimetric is a research and monitoring platform. It does not constitute and is not a substitute for:
- Investment advice or trade execution
- Credit ratings or ratings-agency opinions
- Municipal advisory services
- Municipal issuance advice
Decision-making authority remains with users and the communities they serve.
Coverage
- Scope
- Community drinking-water systems, all 50 states and territories
- Rollout posture
- Public exposure and premium workflows are confidence-gated and entitlement-gated
- Markets scored
- 9,512 service markets as of March 2026
- Publicly eligible
- 9,268 (confidence-gated)
- Wastewater
- Beta context in v1; not included in headline score unless mapping confidence is high