USGS Launches New Web Site for Nation's Water Data
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) unveiled its new, online WaterWatch Web site, which gives visitors an instantaneous picture of water conditions nationwide in near real time. Through the use of USGS WaterWatch maps, the entire nation's current stream flow conditions, including high flood-flows and low drought-flows are depicted on maps with color-coded dots which represent conditions at about 3,000 stream gages. The WaterWatch Web site is available at: http://water.usgs.gov/ waterwatch.
WaterWatch features a point-and-click interface, allowing users to retrieve maps and graphs of real-time stage and discharge data for individual stations. From the national map, you can click on a state to find state data and click further to find near real-time data at an individual gage. This feature facilitates rapid assessment of both general and specific water-resources conditions. WaterWatch also serves as a geospatial front end to NWISWeb, the USGS online National Water Information System that provides access via home or office computer to real-time and historical surface water, ground water and water quality data. Access to data (including real-time stream flow and historical flood peaks) via NWISWeb can be obtained at http://waterdata.usgs. gov/nwis/. To provide users with a broad perspective on short-term and long-term stream flow conditions and variations, WaterWatch maps and graphs are organized into three distinct categories: real-time, daily and 7-day average stream flow. The latter category is particularly useful for identifying regions undergoing prolonged wet and dry spells.