How To Use Water Data for Nation's NextGen Monitoring Location Pages

The U.S. Geological  Survey monitors the waters

of the nation and presents 

the results of that monitoring  on monitoring location pages

showing real time water  monitoring data and much more.

This is an overview  of a monitoring location page.

Here you see one of those  pages picked out of thousands.

Trout Creek near Tahoe  Valley, California.

The main feature  is the hydrograph.

One central, interactive  hydrograph. By default,

you see the most recent seven  days of water depth data.

You can interact  with the hydrograph 

by moving the mouse across it, 

and as you move across it, 

you can see the numeric value 

change. You can zoom  in and out - pan and scan.

If you're on a mobile device,  you can interact

with this hydrograph  by tapping the screen.

You can change the  amount of data shown 

on this hydrograph by clicking  one of these buttons.

Here is a graph of  one year of data.

Different colors are used 

to explain qualifiers  or caveats about the data.

All of the colors 

are explained at the bottom of 

the hydrograph in the legend. 

Here is a graph of  30 days of data.

If you'd like a custom  range of dates, you either

enter the number of days 

here or the start  and end dates here.

If you'd like to 

download the data,  that's 'retrieve data,' here.

The download format is easy 

to import into spreadsheets  and other applications.

So this is gage height. 

It's the most common  water data people like to see,

but USGS often monitors  more than gage height.

Scroll down to data to graph.

Let's look at discharge 

the volumetric stream  flow at a location.

And so now here is  30 days of streamflow.

If you'd like context  for these water data,

here are your options. 

You can compare these data to  what it was like a year ago.

Year-over-year comparison. 

You can display median  statistics to see

how these data compare  to long term averages.

In this case, 60 years  of monitoring data.

We think the hydrograph 

is the most prominent  and important feature of these

monitoring location pages,  but there are other features.

There's a hydrograph  data table. You can page

through the data  in tabular format. 

We're glad to present you  this interactive map.

You see the current  monitoring location 

is a blue pin in the map 

and you see other nearby  active monitoring locations.

You can click on them  to view their monitoring location pages.

There also are lines  indicating the creek or river.

Where's the water coming from  and where's it going to?

As you zoom out, you'll see  the gray watershed area -

all the area where rain  would fall, potentially

entering the stream  and eventually passing 

by the monitoring location. 

Helpful spatial context. 

Often several monitoring locations are networked together to

get a bigger picture 

view of water resources in  an area of the United States.

If this monitoring  location belongs to one

or more networks, 

you can click on them to see  all associated monitoring.

If you'd like a bigger picture 

of the types of data collected  at this monitoring location,

more than just recent data  or time series data,

the summary of all available  data offers that.

For example, USGS monitored  dissolved metals in the water

at this location  from 1989 to 2002.

These data can be viewed  and downloaded from here.

There is much more  metadata about the 

monitoring location, such 

as its latitude and longitude  and what county it's in.

Sometimes helpful  background information

is written in this area  about how USGS has performed,

monitoring here, the history  of its monitoring and more.

Finally, at the bottom of  the page, there is a clickable

list of cooperators. 

Other agencies and programs 

that help the USGS 

monitor water at this  monitoring location.

Let's return to the top of the  page. If you need to get to our

old system, for now  you can select classic page.

This will take you to  those pages that 

have looked about the same  for over 20 years. 

These pages won't be around 

forever because we're building  these new pages.

And there's a menu system 

at the top where you can see 

other kinds of water data 

available at this  monitoring location. 

And there's much more  written material 

from our Water Data  for the Nation blog 

to educational material  in our Water Science School.

We're always adding more 

features. If you have  feedback, please 

click questions or comments 

here at the bottom  and let us know. 

We'd like to hear from you. 

Everything you just saw  was focused on USGS

monitoring of a river. 

But USGS also monitors  groundwater wells

and much more. And those pages  behave comparably.

This has been an  overview of a new USGS

monitoring location page. 

We are Earth science  in the public service.

Thanks for watching.