Susan Trapanese

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Overview of National Water Information System
(NWIS)

• Susan Trapanese
• Chief of National Water Information System
• April 17, 2007

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National Water Information System
Business Components
Water Science Center NWIS servers
Customer
Natl NWISWeb Servers
NWIS applications servers/clients
Products reports tables graphics data files
National Water Quality Laboratory
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NWIS Water Science Center Installations
WA
MT
ND
MN
New England (MA, CT, RI, VT, NH, ME)
OR
ID
SD
WI
NY
MI
PA
WY
IA
NJ
NE
OH
NV
IL
IN
MD/DE
UT
CO
WV

CA
VA
KS
MO
KY
NC
TN
OK
AZ
AR
SC
NM
GA
AL
MS
LA
TX
FL
AK
PR
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NWIS Internal Components

• GWSI site characteristics, and ground-water
  water levels and well construction information
• QWDATA water quality data obtained from field
  samples that are later analyzed at laboratories
• SWUDS site-specific water use (withdrawals,
  conveyances, transfers and returns)
• ADAPS time-series data from ground-water and
  surface water continuous monitoring sites

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NWIS External Components

• NWIS public subsystems for disseminating data and
  information
• AWUDS aggregated water use
• NWISWeb NWIS site-specific water data from 46
  WSC installations

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NWIS Sitefile

• Site information common to all NWIS
  systems/components
• Identification (site name)
• Physical descriptors (latitude/longitude)
• Political descriptors (State, County)
• Data collection methods (GPS, map)

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Ground-Water Site Inventory - GWSI

• Well construction
• Ground-water levels
• Well discharge
• Geohydrology and aquifer hydraulics
• Use of water
• Potentially 500 descriptive data elements

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Quality of Water - QWDATA

• Physical properties - pH, specific conductance
• Inorganic constituents
• Organic constituents
• Trace metals
• Biological tissue contaminant data
• Sediment size and concentration

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Water-Use Data System - WUDS

• Site-specific water-use data (SWUDS)
• Stores measurements and estimates of water use by
  individual users
• Tracks water movement from site to site
• Ancillary data can be stored (power generation,
  quantities of acres irrigated)
• Aggregate water-use data (AWUDS)
• Data aggregated by county, hydrologic unit, and
  aquifer
• Compiled for Estimated Use of Water in the
  United States http//water.usgs.gov/wateruse/

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Automated Data-Processing System - ADAPS

• Most types of continuous time-series data
• Streamflow and stage
• Lake and reservoir stage
• Water-quality automated monitor data
• Ground-water levels
• Precipitation
• Stream peak-flow data

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NWIS Internet/Web System - NWISWeb

• Activated in 2000, replaced older system
• Access to 100s of millions of pieces of
  historical and real-time data
• NWISWeb aggregates most of the NWIS WSC data into
  one national database accessible through one web
  site
• Receives over 20 million data requests per month

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NWIS Network
-- NWIS Installation
-- NWISWeb Web Server Node
Draft-10/12/2004
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What is NWISWeb?
46 NWIS hosts
http//waterdata.usgs.gov/
N A D
National Aggregate Database
Secure Repository
Public View
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NWISWeb Update Frequency

• Data is pushed from each NWIS database server on
  a scheduled basis
• Manual or multi-step process
• Annually for QW analyses
• Automated process configurable by each district
• Daily for GWSI discrete water levels from wells
• Multiple times a day for ADAPS continuous daily
  values
• Daily for site information, measurements and peak
  streamflow
• Real-time data is transmitted to NWISWeb within
  minutes of being processed by the district office
  and is regarded as provisional and subject to
  revision
• Customizations for additional page content

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USGS NWISWeb Database
1.5 million
Total monitoring sites
9,915
Real-time sites
935
Real-time ground water
272.2 million
Daily values
7.8 million
Ground-water levels
4.4 million
Water quality samples
69.6 million
Water quality analyses
665,000
Peak discharges (floods)
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USGS NWISWeb Daily Values
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Web Access to USGS Hydrologic Data History of
monthly requests to NWISWeb for data successfully
fulfilled, in millions
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Public AccessBased on Replication
LRGS
LRGS
WWW
WWW
NWIS-RT
NWIS-RT
Menlo Park
Reston
WWW
Sioux Falls
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NWIS-RT

• Ensures availability of real time (stream flow)
  data to the public
• Handles transfer of real time data when a WSC
  NWIS server is down
• WSC may have to shut down due to an approaching
  hurricane or tropical storm
• Allows information to continue to flow during
  upgrades to district servers hardware and
  software

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NWIS-RT Real Time Availability
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NWIS Water Data Not in NWISWeb

• Well completion and production information
• Water-use information (aggregate water- use
  available at http//water.usgs.gov/watuse/)

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Useful Links to NWIS

• NWIS data via web http//waterdata.usgs.gov/nwis/
• List of water quality parameters available from
  NWIS via NWISWeb http//waterdata.usgs.gov/nwis/he
  lp?parameters_help
• NWISWeb Fact Sheet http//pubs.usgs.gov/fs/fs-128-
  02/