USGS Water Data OGC APIs

These APIs provide OGC-compliant interfaces to USGS water data, letting you download continuous sensor measurements, discrete field measurements, metadata about monitoring locations, and more.

geospatial data api hydrology USGS

Available endpoints

View all the endpoints available on this website.

• Latest continuous

  This endpoint provides the most recent observation for each time series of continuous data. Continuous data are collected via automated sensors installed at a monitoring location. They are collected at a high frequency and often at a fixed 15-minute interval.

  Latest continuous endpoint

• Daily values

  Daily data provide one data value to represent water conditions for the day. Throughout much of the history of the USGS, the primary water data available was daily data collected manually at the monitoring location once each day. With improved availability of computer storage and automated transmission of data, the daily data published today are generally a statistical summary or metric of the continuous data collected each day, such as the daily mean, minimum, or maximum value.

  Daily values endpoint

• Latest daily values

  Daily data provide one data value to represent water conditions for the day. Throughout much of the history of the USGS, the primary water data available was daily data collected manually at the monitoring location once each day. With improved availability of computer storage and automated transmission of data, the daily data published today are generally a statistical summary or metric of the continuous data collected each day, such as the daily mean, minimum, or maximum value.

  Latest daily values endpoint

• Field measurements

  Field measurements are physically measured values collected during a visit to the monitoring location. Field measurements consist of measurements of gage height and discharge, and readings of groundwater levels, and are primarily used as calibration readings for the automated sensors collecting continuous data. They are collected at a low frequency, and delivery of the data in WDFN may be delayed due to data processing time.

  Field measurements endpoint

• Time series metadata

  Daily data and continuous measurements are grouped into time series, which represent a collection of observations of a single parameter, potentially aggregated using a standard statistic, at a single monitoring location. This endpoint provides metadata about those time series, including their operational thresholds, units of measurement, and when the earliest and most recent observations in a time series occurred..

  Time series metadata endpoint

• Monitoring locations

  Location information is basic information about the monitoring location including the name, identifier, agency responsible for data collection, and the date the location was established. It also includes information about the type of location, such as stream, lake, or groundwater, and geographic information about the location, such as state, county, latitude and longitude, and hydrologic unit code (HUC)..

  Monitoring locations endpoint