USGS Surface-Water Data for the Nation
The U.S. Geological Survey's (USGS) National Water Information System (NWIS) is a comprehensive and distributed application that supports the acquisition, processing, and long-term storage of water data. Water Data for the Nation serves as the publicly available portal to a geographically seamless set of much of the water data maintained within NWIS
Nationally, USGS surface-water data includes more than 850,000 station years of time-series data that describe stream levels, streamflow (discharge), reservoir and lake levels, surface-water quality, and rainfall. The data are collected by automatic recorders and manual measurements at field installations across the U.S.
Once a complete day of readings are received from a site, daily summary data are generated and made available online. USGS finalizes data at individual sites on a continuous basis as environmental conditions and hydrologic characteristics permit.
USGS provides information regarding:
- Current conditions
- Historical observations
- Daily conditions
- Statistics
- Peak flow
- Field measurements
Related Organizations:
Sectors:
Resource Category:
Resource Types:
- Mapping tool
- Modeling tool
- Tool (general)
Impacts:
- Precipitation changes
- Water quality
- Water supply
