Mission Areas
Water Resources
Water information is fundamental to national and local economic well-being, protection of life and property, and effective management of the Nation’s water resources. The USGS works with partners to monitor, assess, conduct targeted research, and deliver information on a wide range of water resources and conditions including streamflow, groundwater, water quality, and water use and availability.
USGS Water Data for the Nation
Surface-water, groundwater, water-quality, and water-use data collected at approximately 1.9 million sites across all 50 states.
Get dataMessage from the Associate Director for Water
Learn more about the WMA from Dr. Don Cline, the Associate Director for Water Resources.
ReadPopular Water Data and Tools
Explore our science by the topical areas that drive the research and projects conducted by our Programs.
USGS Water Data for the Nation
National Groundwater Monitoring Network Data Portal
More data and toolsNews
USGS Crews Work to Measure Record Flooding Caused By Sally
To learn more about USGS’s role in providing science to decision-makers before, during, and after Hurricane Sally, visit usgs.gov/sally.
Track Potential Flooding from Hurricane Sally
To learn more about USGS’s role in providing science to decision makers before, during and after Hurricane Sally, visit usgs.gov/sally.
New Study Identifies Pesticide Mixtures in U.S. Rivers and Streams
A mix of multiple pesticides is common in many U.S. streams, reports a new study by the U.S. Geological Survey National Water Quality Program.
Publications
Trends in nitrogen, phosphorus, and sediment concentrations and loads in streams draining to Lake Tahoe, California, Nevada, USA
Lake Tahoe, a large freshwater lake of the eastern Sierra Nevada in California and Nevada, has 63 tributaries that are sources of nutrients and sediment to the lake. The Tahoe watershed is relatively small, and the surface area of the lake occupies about 38% of the watershed area (1313 km2). Only about 6% of the watershed is urbanized or...
Domagalski, Joseph L.; Morway, Eric D.; Alvarez, Nancy L.; Hutchins, Juliet; Rosen, Michael R.; Coats, Robert Complexity of groundwater age mixing near a seawater intrusion zone based on multiple tracers and Bayesian inference
Aquifer flow systems near seawater interfaces can be complicated by density-driven flows and the formation of stagnation zones, which inevitably introduces uncertainty into groundwater age-dating. While age-dating has proved effective to understand the seawater intrusion and aquifer salinization process in coastal aquifers, further efforts are...
Ju, YeoJin; Massoudieh, Arash; Green, Christopher; Lee, Kang-Kun; Kaown, Dugin
Use of time domain electromagnetic soundings and borehole electromagnetic induction logs to delineate the freshwater/saltwater interface on southwestern Long Island, New York, 2015–17
The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, used surface and borehole geophysical methods to delineate the freshwater/saltwater interface in coastal plain aquifers along the southwestern part of Long Island, New York. Over pumping of groundwater in the early 20th century combined...
Stumm, Frederick; Como, Michael D.; Zuck, Marie A.