National/Regional Assessments

Understanding the quality of U.S. streams, rivers, and groundwater requires consistent data collection and analysis over decades for proper context of current conditions. The USGS collects nationally standardized data and information as part of the National Water Quality Network (NWQN). The NQWN is made up of sites across the Nation where USGS scientists regularly measure water-quality conditions.

Issue: Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) have been manufactured and used in a variety of industries in the United States since the 1940s. PFAS are ubiquitous and persistent in the environment and have the potential to have adverse human and ecological health effects. The Chesapeake Bay Program (CBP) partnerships has concerns about how PFAS will affect the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem. The CBP...

StreamStats is a web application (Web Tool) for water-resources planning and engineering purposes. The map-based user interface can be used to delineate drainage areas for user-selected sites on streams, generate basin characteristics and estimate flow statistics for the selected sites. Users also can select the locations of USGS data-collection stations, shown as triangles on the StreamStats map...

The USGS New Jersey Water Science Center, in cooperation with the NJ Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP), New Jersey Water Supply Authority, and the Delaware River Basin Commission, maintain the New Jersey Ambient Surface-Water-Quality Monitoring Network (ASWQMN) — a collection of monitoring stations on streams throughout New Jersey. Constituent concentration data from the ASWQMN are...

These archive pages document the first phase of the National Water Quality Assessment (NAWQA) Program (Cycle I) studies in New Jersey, including summary documents, work plans, study sites, maps and publications.

The Sandy Hook Unit, Gateway National Recreation Area (hereafter Sandy Hook) in New Jersey is a 10-kilometer-long spit visited by thousands of people each year who take advantage of the historical and natural resources and recreational opportunities.

The National Resources Protection Program (NRPP) project on Fire Island, Sandy Hook, and Assateague included a description of the issues and implications; description of the methods; and summary of the tasks, including site selection, well and instrumentation installation, and monitoring groundwater levels, temperature, and specific conductance, needed to understand the impact of global climate...

The Long Island-New Jersey (LINJ) coastal drainages NAWQA study is one of the 1994 set and is coordinated from our West Trenton, NJ office. Tasks for the first two years, 1994-95, included staffing, developing a liaison process, analyzing existing data, and designing a data collection program that started in 1996. These planning activities lead to the study design for 3 years of intensive data...

The Delaware River drainage basin encompasses more than 12,700 mi2 (square miles) and includes parts of Pennsylvania (6,465 mi2), New Jersey (2,969 mi2), New York (2,363 mi2), and Delaware (968 mi2). The study-unit area includes the entire drainage basin, except for 770 mi2 of the Coastal Plain in the State of Delaware and the tidal portions of the Delaware Estuary. About 7.2 million people live...