USGS Streamgages By the Numbers Active

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 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.

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.

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.

This site serves USGS water data (streamflow, groundwater, water quality, site information, and statistics) via automated means using web services and extensible markup language (XML), as well as other popular media types. Services are invoked with the REST protocol. These services designed for high fault tolerance and very high availability.

This mapper identifies USGS streamgages that are in danger of being discontinued or converted to a reduced level of service due to lack of funding, gages that already have been discontinued, and gages that have been ‘rescued’ by a new funding source.