USGS Water Services

aid: usgs-water
name: USGS Water Services
description: >-
  The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) National Water Information System (NWIS)
  exposes a suite of REST APIs providing access to real-time and historical water
  data from over 1.5 million monitoring locations across the United States and
  territories. The legacy WaterServices APIs (being decommissioned in early 2027)
  and the next-generation api.waterdata.usgs.gov OGC-compliant APIs together
  cover streamflow, groundwater levels, water quality, site metadata, and
  statistical summaries. All services are free, publicly funded, and require no
  authentication for standard use; API keys are available at no cost for higher
  rate-limit access.
type: Index
image: https://kinlane-productions.s3.amazonaws.com/apis-json/apis-json-logo.jpg
access: Public
created: '2026-06-13'
modified: '2026-06-13'
position: Producer
url: >-
  https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/usgs-water/refs/heads/main/apis.yml
specificationVersion: '0.19'
tags:
  - Water
  - Streamflow
  - Groundwater
  - Water Quality
  - Hydrology
  - Environmental
  - USGS
  - NWIS
  - Government
  - Open Data
  - OGC
apis:
  - aid: usgs-water:instantaneous-values
    name: USGS Instantaneous Values Service
    description: >-
      Provides near real-time water data — streamflow, gage height, temperature,
      specific conductance, and hundreds of other parameters — from thousands of
      USGS monitoring sites. Values are typically recorded every 15 minutes and
      transmitted hourly. Data is available from October 1, 2007 onwards and is
      marked provisional until reviewed.
    humanURL: https://waterservices.usgs.gov/docs/instantaneous-values/instantaneous-values-details/
    baseURL: https://waterservices.usgs.gov/nwis/iv/
    tags:
      - Real-Time
      - Streamflow
      - Gage Height
      - Water Parameters
      - Time Series
    properties:
      - type: Documentation
        url: https://waterservices.usgs.gov/docs/instantaneous-values/instantaneous-values-details/
      - type: Website
        url: https://waterservices.usgs.gov/

  - aid: usgs-water:daily-values
    name: USGS Daily Values Service
    description: >-
      Returns historical summarized daily hydrologic data (mean, median, maximum,
      minimum) for streams, lakes, estuaries, and wells. Many sites have more than
      10 years of record. Supports WaterML 1.1, WaterML 2.0, RDB (tab-delimited),
      and JSON output formats.
    humanURL: https://waterservices.usgs.gov/docs/dv-service/daily-values-service-details/
    baseURL: https://waterservices.usgs.gov/nwis/dv/
    tags:
      - Daily Values
      - Historical Data
      - Streamflow
      - Hydrology
      - WaterML
    properties:
      - type: Documentation
        url: https://waterservices.usgs.gov/docs/dv-service/daily-values-service-details/
      - type: Website
        url: https://waterservices.usgs.gov/

  - aid: usgs-water:site-service
    name: USGS Site Service
    description: >-
      Searches and retrieves metadata for millions of USGS hydrologic data collection
      sites including streams, springs, wells, lakes, reservoirs, estuaries, and
      glaciers. Filtering options include site number, state, HUC, bounding box, county,
      site type, and parameter codes. Outputs include tab-delimited, KML, and GeoJSON.
    humanURL: https://waterservices.usgs.gov/docs/site-service/site-service-details/
    baseURL: https://waterservices.usgs.gov/nwis/site/
    tags:
      - Site Metadata
      - Monitoring Locations
      - Geospatial
      - NWIS
    properties:
      - type: Documentation
        url: https://waterservices.usgs.gov/docs/site-service/site-service-details/
      - type: Website
        url: https://waterservices.usgs.gov/

  - aid: usgs-water:statistics-service
    name: USGS Statistics Service
    description: >-
      Retrieves daily, monthly, or annual statistics (mean, minimum, maximum, median,
      and percentiles P05–P95) computed from approved historical time-series data.
      Supports up to 10 sites per request and returns data in RDB tab-delimited format.
    humanURL: https://waterservices.usgs.gov/docs/statistics/statistics-details/
    baseURL: https://waterservices.usgs.gov/nwis/stats/
    tags:
      - Statistics
      - Percentiles
      - Historical
      - Streamflow
      - Approved Data
    properties:
      - type: Documentation
        url: https://waterservices.usgs.gov/docs/statistics/statistics-details/
      - type: Website
        url: https://waterservices.usgs.gov/

  - aid: usgs-water:groundwater-levels
    name: USGS Groundwater Levels Service
    description: >-
      Provides historical manually-recorded groundwater level measurements from USGS
      wells and monitoring sites. Returns depth-to-water and water-level-above-datum
      values in JSON or RDB format. For automated real-time groundwater data, the
      Instantaneous Values Service should be used.
    humanURL: https://waterservices.usgs.gov/docs/groundwater-levels/groundwater-levels-details/
    baseURL: https://waterservices.usgs.gov/nwis/gwlevels/
    tags:
      - Groundwater
      - Water Levels
      - Wells
      - Aquifers
      - Historical
    properties:
      - type: Documentation
        url: https://waterservices.usgs.gov/docs/groundwater-levels/groundwater-levels-details/
      - type: Website
        url: https://waterservices.usgs.gov/

  - aid: usgs-water:ogc-continuous-values
    name: USGS OGC Continuous Values API
    description: >-
      Next-generation OGC API compliant service (api.waterdata.usgs.gov) providing
      real-time continuous sensor measurements including streamflow, gage height, and
      hundreds of other parameters. Implements OGC API – Features standard with CQL2
      filtering, spatial bounding-box queries, and temporal filtering. Supports JSON,
      HTML, CSV, and JSON-LD output formats.
    humanURL: https://api.waterdata.usgs.gov/docs/
    baseURL: https://api.waterdata.usgs.gov/ogcapi/v0/collections/continuous
    tags:
      - Real-Time
      - OGC
      - Streamflow
      - Continuous Data
      - Next Generation
    properties:
      - type: Documentation
        url: https://api.waterdata.usgs.gov/docs/
      - type: OpenAPI
        url: https://api.waterdata.usgs.gov/ogcapi/v0/openapi?f=json
      - type: Website
        url: https://api.waterdata.usgs.gov/

  - aid: usgs-water:ogc-daily-values
    name: USGS OGC Daily Values API
    description: >-
      OGC API compliant service for historical summarized daily water data with derived
      statistics. Part of the next-generation USGS Water Data API platform replacing
      the legacy WaterServices (slated for decommission in early 2027). Supports
      CQL2 filtering, geospatial queries, and multiple output formats.
    humanURL: https://api.waterdata.usgs.gov/docs/
    baseURL: https://api.waterdata.usgs.gov/ogcapi/v0/collections/daily
    tags:
      - Daily Values
      - OGC
      - Historical
      - Next Generation
    properties:
      - type: Documentation
        url: https://api.waterdata.usgs.gov/docs/
      - type: OpenAPI
        url: https://api.waterdata.usgs.gov/ogcapi/v0/openapi?f=json
      - type: Website
        url: https://api.waterdata.usgs.gov/

  - aid: usgs-water:ogc-monitoring-locations
    name: USGS OGC Monitoring Locations API
    description: >-
      OGC API compliant service providing location details, geographic data, and site
      identifiers for USGS monitoring stations. Returns rich metadata including
      site type, drainage area, altitude, aquifer codes, and active parameter inventory.
    humanURL: https://api.waterdata.usgs.gov/docs/
    baseURL: https://api.waterdata.usgs.gov/ogcapi/v0/collections/monitoring-locations
    tags:
      - Monitoring Locations
      - Site Metadata
      - Geospatial
      - OGC
    properties:
      - type: Documentation
        url: https://api.waterdata.usgs.gov/docs/
      - type: OpenAPI
        url: https://api.waterdata.usgs.gov/ogcapi/v0/openapi?f=json
      - type: Website
        url: https://api.waterdata.usgs.gov/

  - aid: usgs-water:water-quality-portal
    name: Water Quality Portal (WQP) API
    description: >-
      A cooperative service sponsored by USGS and EPA providing access to water quality
      data from over 400 agencies including USGS NWIS and EPA WQX. Endpoints cover
      monitoring sites, chemistry results, biological metrics, activity data, and
      detection limits. Supports spatial, temporal, characteristic, and organizational
      filters. Output formats include CSV, TSV, XLSX, XML, GeoJSON, KML, and KMZ.
    humanURL: https://www.waterqualitydata.us/webservices_documentation/
    baseURL: https://www.waterqualitydata.us/data/
    tags:
      - Water Quality
      - EPA
      - Chemistry
      - Biology
      - Monitoring
      - Multi-Agency
    properties:
      - type: Documentation
        url: https://www.waterqualitydata.us/webservices_documentation/
      - type: Website
        url: https://www.waterqualitydata.us/

  - aid: usgs-water:statistics-next-gen
    name: USGS Water Data Statistics API
    description: >-
      Next-generation statistics API at api.waterdata.usgs.gov providing computed
      statistical summaries for USGS water time series. Part of the platform replacing
      the legacy WaterServices statistics endpoint.
    humanURL: https://api.waterdata.usgs.gov/statistics/v0/docs
    baseURL: https://api.waterdata.usgs.gov/statistics/v0/
    tags:
      - Statistics
      - Next Generation
      - Time Series
    properties:
      - type: Documentation
        url: https://api.waterdata.usgs.gov/statistics/v0/docs
      - type: Website
        url: https://api.waterdata.usgs.gov/

common:
  - type: Website
    url: https://waterservices.usgs.gov/
  - type: Website
    url: https://api.waterdata.usgs.gov/
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://waterservices.usgs.gov/docs/
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://api.waterdata.usgs.gov/docs/
  - type: SignUp
    url: https://api.waterdata.usgs.gov/signup/
  - type: PrivacyPolicy
    url: https://www.doi.gov/privacy
  - type: TermsOfService
    url: https://www.usgs.gov/information-policies-and-instructions/copyrights-and-credits
  - type: Contact
    url: mailto:[email protected]
  - type: StatusPage
    url: https://waterservices.usgs.gov/test-tools/
  - type: Plans
    url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/usgs-water/refs/heads/main/plans/usgs-water-plans.yml
  - type: RateLimits
    url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/usgs-water/refs/heads/main/rate-limits/usgs-water-rate-limits.yml
  - type: FinOps
    url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/usgs-water/refs/heads/main/finops/usgs-water-finops.yml
maintainers:
  - FN: Kin Lane
    email: [email protected]