U.S. Department of the Interior

U.S. Geological Survey

Fact Sheet 2013–3072

 October 2013

U.S. Geological Survey Water Resources Internet Tools

Discover a wealth of hydrologic data, maps, graphs, and other resources for your State!

Where Can I Find It? What Can I Do With It? What Does It Look Like?

USGS WaterWatch

http://waterwatch.usgs.gov/

Display National and State maps, graphs, and tables describing 

real-time, recent, and past streamflow conditions for the United 

States including locations where floods and droughts are 

occurring. (Real-time data, in most cases, are transmitted once 

every 1 to 4 hours.) Also, you can select USGS streamgaging 

stations to view more detailed summary information such as 

hydrographs showing peak, forecast, and rating data.

USGS WaterQualityWatch

http://waterwatch.usgs.gov/wqwatch/

Tap into a network of near real-time water-quality data from 

over 1,700 surface-water sites in the United States. Data are 

available for temperature, specific conductance, pH, dissolved 

oxygen, turbidity, and (or) nitrate depending on the site. Data 

also are available for discharge.

USGS Groundwater Watch

http://groundwaterwatch.usgs.gov/

Find out more about groundwater levels and statistical 

characteristics of well networks.

Active Water Level Network—wells measured a least once 

within the past 13 months. 

Climate Response Network—wells that monitor effects of 

climate variability such as droughts.

Real-time Network—wells measured at 15- to 60-minute 

intervals and transmitted to the Internet every 1 to 4 hours.

Long-Term Groundwater-Data Network—wells with at least 

20 years of measurements.

USGS WaterNow

http://water.usgs.gov/waternow/

Get on-demand water data directly to your mobile phone or by 

email. Send an email or text message containing the USGS site 

number and quickly receive a reply with the most recent observation. Get all available parameters for a site by sending a query

To: WaterNow@usgs.gov

Subject: SiteNumber *
Where Can I Find It? What Can I Do With It? What Does It Look Like?

USGS WaterAlert

http://water.usgs.gov/wateralert/

Is the river near you flooding? Is the water temperature of your 

favorite fishing stream above 25 degrees Celsius? You can get 

an email or text message sent to you when selected parameters 

exceed user-defined thresholds at a real-time station. (Real-time 

data, in most cases, are transmitted once every 1 to 4 hours.)

USGS Flood Inundation Mapper

http://wim.usgs.gov/FIMI/

Displays the likely areal extent of flooding at different river 

levels for selected communities.

Note: Requires Adobe Flash Player and may not work on some 

portable devices.

USGS National Water Information System (NWIS)

http://waterdata.usgs.gov/nwis

Provides access to water-resources data collected at over 1.5 million 

sites in the 50 States and selected other areas. Data are organized by

Current conditions—sites with real-time or recent surface-water, 

groundwater, or water-quality data.

Site information—descriptive site information for all sites with links 

to all available water data for individual sites.

Groundwater—water levels in wells.

Water quality—chemical and physical data for streams, lakes, wells, 

and other sites.

Water use—water-use information.

USGS StreamStats

http://streamstats.usgs.gov/

Obtain a variety of flow statistics, basin characteristics, and 

other information for both gaged and ungaged stream sites by 

using a mapping application. Streamstats is not operational for 

all States at this time. See a map at 

http://water.usgs.gov/osw/streamstats/ssonline.html

to determine if Streamstats is available for your State.

Note: Best viewed in Internet Explorer 5 or above.

USGS National Water Quality Assessment (NAWQA) Data Warehouse

http://water.usgs.gov/nawqa/data.html

Provides chemical, biological, and physical water-quality data 

from 51 study areas (basins) across the United States, including

• 65,000 nutrient, 44,000 pesticide, and 12,000 volatile organic 

compound (VOC) sample results. (Many VOCs are humanmade chemicals and are suspected human carcinogens.)

• 2,700 sample results of bed sediment and aquatic-organism 

tissues.

• Biological-community data for fish, aquatic 

macroinvertebrates, and algae.

FRM: WaterAlert@usgs.gov

MSG: 144 cfs Streamflow, 

2013-11-10 9:42:00

Scioto River below 

O’Shaughnessy Dam nr 

Dublin, OH

http://water.usgs.gov/bns?

YUhd6:03221000