Web Tools

The U.S. Geological Survey WaterAlert service provides notifications to your email or phone for changes in water conditions based on thresholds you choose.

The USGS Ecosystems Mission Area provides science to understand wildlife diseases, including avian influenza (AI). Avian influenza viruses occur naturally in wild birds such as ducks, geese, swans, and gulls. These viruses generally do not cause illness in wild birds but they can be highly pathogenic and cause illness and death in poultry and wildlife. Learn more with this geonarrative.

The Great Lakes Coastal Wetland Restoration Assessment (GLCWRA) uses principles of geodesign to identify, assess, and restore areas along the U.S. coast of the Great Lakes that have the most potential to restore coastal wetland habitat. This Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI) funded work supports land managers and restoration practitioners from site-specific to landscape scales.

The National Water Dashboard (NWD) is a mobile, interactive tool that provides real-time information on water levels, weather, and flood forecasts - all in one place on a computer, smartphone, or other mobile device. The NWD presents real-time stream, lake and reservoir, precipitation, and groundwater data from more than 13,500 USGS observation stations across the country.

WaterQualityWatch provides access to real-time water-quality data collected at more than 2,000 stream sites throughout the United States, including streamflow, water temperature, specific conductance, pH, dissolved oxygen, turbidity, and nitrate.

The USGS provides real-time or near-real-time conditions water data at sites across the Nation. Current data typically are recorded at 15- to 60-minute intervals, stored onsite, and then transmitted to USGS offices every 1 to 4 hours, depending on the data relay technique used. Recording and transmission times may be more frequent during critical events.

The USGS Mobile Water Data site highlights USGS current conditions water data in a mobile-friendly website, allowing users to monitor conditions at a favorite river or stream or locate nearby monitoring locations. All USGS current conditions water data is available.

WaterWatch displays maps, graphs, and tables describing real-time, recent, and past streamflow conditions for the United States, including flood and droughts. Real-time information generally is updated on an hourly basis.

The U.S. is sub-divided into successively smaller hydrologic units which are classified into four levels: regions, sub-regions, accounting units, and cataloging units. Each unit is identified by a unique hydrologic unit code (HUC) consisting of two to eight digits based on its classification. This site provides information and data for current and historical hydrologic units, names, and numbers.

During large, short-term events, the USGS collects streamflow and additional data (including storm tide, wave height, high-water marks, and additional sensor deployments) to aid in documenting flood events. The USGS Flood Event Viewer provides convenient, map-based access to downloadable event-based data.

This mapper identifies USGS Federal Priority Streamgages (FPS). FPS are monitoring stations that track the amount of water in streams and rivers across the Nation to meet long-term federal information needs. They are strategically positioned to serve as a backbone for the larger National Streamflow Network that is operated in cooperation with over 1,200 federal, state, tribal, and local agencies.

A principal aquifer is defined as a regionally extensive aquifer or aquifer system that has the potential to be used as a source of potable water. This site provides downloadable maps (Ground Water Atlas of the United States, 2003) and spatial data (National Atlas, 2014) for the principal aquifers and aquifers of alluvial and glacial origin of the U.S.