🌊 USGS Water Services Scraper

🚀 Export US hydrologic observations in seconds. Pull streamflow, gauge height, water temperature, dissolved oxygen, pH, and groundwater levels from the National Water Information System across ~10,000 monitoring sites. No API key, no registration, no manual CSV downloads.

🕒 Last updated: 2026-05-23 · 📊 18 fields per record · 🌊 ~10,000 USGS sites · 💧 3 endpoints (iv / dv / gwlevels) · 🇺🇸 50 states

The USGS Water Services Scraper exports observation records from the United States Geological Survey's National Water Information System (NWIS), the authoritative source for real-time and historical surface-water and groundwater data in the United States. Each record contains the site identifier, site name, geographic coordinates, parameter code, observed value, unit, qualifier flags, and the precise observation timestamp.

The catalog covers streamflow gauges on every major river system, lake and reservoir levels, water-quality monitors, and groundwater wells across all 50 states, plus territories. Pull the most-recent reading for live dashboards or a date-bounded window for trend analysis, flood-modeling, or environmental research. This Actor turns the underlying observation feed into clean CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML in under five minutes.

🎯 Target Audience	💡 Primary Use Cases
Hydrologists, civil engineers, environmental scientists, irrigation operators, flood-warning teams, GIS analysts, ag-tech and water-utility companies	Streamflow monitoring, flood and drought modeling, irrigation scheduling, water-quality compliance, reservoir operations, environmental research

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📋 What the USGS Water Services Scraper does

Three endpoint modes in a single Actor:

• 💧 Instantaneous Values (iv). Sub-hourly readings from real-time surface-water gauges.
• 📅 Daily Values (dv). Daily mean / min / max statistics for long-term trend analysis.
• 🪨 Groundwater Levels (gwlevels). Discrete and continuous well-level measurements.

Filter by USGS site codes, parameter codes (00060 discharge, 00065 gauge height, 00010 water temperature, 00300 dissolved oxygen, 00400 pH, and dozens more), and an optional date range for historical exports.

Each record includes site metadata (code, name, state, coordinates, site type), parameter metadata (code, description, unit, statistic), the observed value, qualifier flags, agency code, and the precise observation timestamp.

💡 Why it matters: USGS NWIS is the canonical source for US streamflow and groundwater data, cited by NOAA forecasts, FEMA flood maps, state water boards, and academic hydrology. Building your own pipeline means handling WaterML and JSON variants, retry logic, and site-code lookups by hand. This Actor skips all of that.

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🎬 Full Demo

🚧 Coming soon: a 3-minute walkthrough showing how to go from sign-up to a downloaded hydrology dataset.

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⚙️ Input

Input	Type	Default	Behavior
maxItems	integer	10	Records to return. Free plan caps at 10, paid plan at 1,000,000.
endpoint	string	"iv"	One of iv (instantaneous), dv (daily), gwlevels (groundwater).
sites	array of string	["01646500"]	USGS site identifiers (8-15 digits).
parameterCodes	array of string	["00060","00065"]	USGS parameter codes (5-digit). Empty = all parameters.
startDate	string (YYYY-MM-DD)	""	Start of the time window. Empty = latest reading only.
endDate	string (YYYY-MM-DD)	""	End of the time window. Empty = latest reading only.

Example: latest streamflow + gauge height for the Potomac River near Washington DC.

{
    "maxItems": 50,
    "endpoint": "iv",
    "sites": ["01646500"],
    "parameterCodes": ["00060", "00065"]
}

Example: 30 days of daily streamflow on the Colorado River at Lees Ferry.

{
    "maxItems": 1000,
    "endpoint": "dv",
    "sites": ["09380000"],
    "parameterCodes": ["00060"],
    "startDate": "2026-04-01",
    "endDate": "2026-04-30"
}

⚠️ Good to Know: USGS site codes range from 8 to 15 digits. Find sites on the USGS Water Data interface or via the USGS site-search tool. Common parameters: 00060 discharge (cfs), 00065 gauge height (ft), 00010 water temperature (C), 00300 dissolved oxygen, 00400 pH.

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📊 Output

Each observation record contains 18 fields. Download the dataset as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML.

🧾 Schema

Field	Type	Example
🆔 siteCode	string	"01646500"
🏷️ siteName	string	"POTOMAC RIVER NEAR WASH, DC LITTLE FALLS PUMP STA"
🏛️ stateCode	string	"VA"
📍 latitude	number	38.94977778
📍 longitude	number	-77.12763889
🌊 siteType	string	"ST"
🔢 parameterCode	string	"00060"
🏷️ parameterName	string	"Discharge"
📖 parameterDescription	string	"Discharge, cubic feet per second"
📏 unit	string	"ft3/s"
📊 statisticCode	string | null	"00003"
📈 value	number	3210
🚩 qualifiers	array | null	["P"]
🕒 dateTime	ISO 8601	"2026-05-23T12:00:00.000-04:00"
🎯 endpoint	string	"iv"
🔬 methodDescription	string | null	""
🏛️ agencyCode	string	"USGS"
🕒 scrapedAt	ISO 8601	"2026-05-23T16:00:00.000Z"

📦 Sample records

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✨ Why choose this Actor

	Capability
🌊	National coverage. ~10,000 active USGS monitoring sites across all 50 states and territories.
💧	Three endpoints. Instantaneous, daily, and groundwater levels covered by a single mode switch.
🔬	Multi-parameter. Streamflow, gauge height, temperature, dissolved oxygen, pH, conductance, and more.
📅	Historical + real-time. Date-bounded windows or just-the-latest reading, your choice.
⚡	Fast. Hundreds of observations in seconds, thousands in minutes.
🚫	No authentication. Works with public USGS Water Services. No login, no API key.
🔁	Always fresh. Every run pulls the latest observations available at run time.

📊 USGS Water Services data underpins NOAA flood forecasts, FEMA flood maps, state-level drought monitoring, and the daily operations of every major US water utility.

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📈 How it compares to alternatives

Approach	Cost	Coverage	Refresh	Filters	Setup
⭐ USGS Water Services Scraper (this Actor)	$5 free credit, then pay-per-use	~10,000 sites	Live per run	site, parameter, date	⚡ 2 min
Direct USGS WaterML feed	Free	National	Live	Hand-built filters	🐢 Hours
Commercial hydrology APIs	$$$/month	Regional, bundled	Vendor cycle	Vendor-defined	⏳ Days
Manual NWIS CSV downloads	Free	Per-site, one at a time	Manual	Web UI	🕒 Variable

Pick this Actor when you want server-side multi-site batching, clean structured output, and no parser maintenance.

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🚀 How to use

1. 📝 Sign up. Create a free account with $5 credit (takes 2 minutes).
2. 🌐 Open the Actor. Go to the USGS Water Services Scraper page on the Apify Store.
3. 🎯 Set input. Pick endpoint (iv / dv / gwlevels), list site codes, optionally narrow by parameter codes and a date range.
4. 🚀 Run it. Click Start and let the Actor collect your data.
5. 📥 Download. Grab your results in the Dataset tab as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML.

⏱️ Total time from signup to downloaded dataset: 3-5 minutes. No coding required.

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💼 Business use cases

🌊 Flood Warning & Hydrology Real-time stage and discharge for warning systems Rating-curve calibration with historical pulls Multi-gauge dashboards for river basins Cross-reference with NOAA precipitation feeds	🌾 Agriculture & Irrigation Surface-water availability for diversion decisions Reservoir-level dashboards for irrigation districts Groundwater trend monitoring for well operators Drought-index calculation with daily means
🏛️ Utilities & Compliance Source-water quality monitoring for drinking-water plants Wastewater receiving-stream baseline tracking NPDES permit compliance baselines Reservoir-operation decision support	🌎 Environmental Research Stream-temperature time series for fisheries studies Long-term groundwater-decline analyses Watershed health indicators at scale ML training sets for hydrologic models

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🔌 Automating USGS Water Services Scraper

Control the scraper programmatically for scheduled runs and pipeline integrations:

• 🟢 Node.js. Install the apify-client NPM package.
• 🐍 Python. Use the apify-client PyPI package.
• 📚 See the Apify API documentation for full details.

The Apify Schedules feature lets you trigger this Actor on any cron interval. Hourly real-time pulls keep dashboards live, while daily refreshes keep long-term archives in sync.

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🌟 Beyond business use cases

Hydrologic data powers more than commercial workflows. The same structured records support research, education, civic transparency, and personal initiatives.

🎓 Research and academia Stream-discharge datasets for hydrology dissertations Long-term trend analysis for climate impact studies Reproducible water-quality research with cited dataset pulls Coursework on watershed modeling and GIS	🎨 Personal and creative River-runner planning dashboards for paddlers Fishing-condition forecasts based on stage and temperature Side projects visualizing local stream health Hobbyist weather-and-water mashups
🤝 Non-profit and civic Riverkeeper organizations tracking water quality Civic-tech projects mapping drought conditions Investigative journalism on water-rights disputes Local-government dashboards for transparency	🧪 Experimentation Train hydrologic ML models on real observation feeds Build flood-prediction prototypes with historical data Prototype agents that summarize watershed conditions Test ETL pipelines on multi-site time-series data

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🤖 Ask an AI assistant about this scraper

Open a ready-to-send prompt about this ParseForge actor in the AI of your choice:

• 💬 ChatGPT
• 🧠 Claude
• 🔍 Perplexity
• 🅒 Copilot

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❓ Frequently Asked Questions

🧩 How does it work?

Pick an endpoint (iv, dv, gwlevels), list one or more USGS site codes, optionally filter by parameter codes and a date range, and click Start. The Actor pulls observations directly from the USGS National Water Information System and emits one structured record per reading.

📏 How accurate is the data?

This Actor mirrors USGS NWIS exactly. Values, qualifier flags, and timestamps come straight from the upstream observation feed. Real-time iv readings are typically provisional (qualifier "P") until USGS hydrographers review them; daily values are approved ("A") once reviewed.

🔁 How often is the dataset refreshed?

USGS instantaneous values update every 15 to 60 minutes depending on the gauge. Daily values refresh once per day. Groundwater levels refresh on each scheduled measurement. Every run of this Actor pulls the most recent data available.

🌊 Which parameter codes are most useful?

00060 discharge (cfs), 00065 gauge height (ft), 00010 water temperature (C), 00300 dissolved oxygen (mg/L), 00400 pH, 00095 specific conductance. Leave the parameter list empty to return every parameter available at the site.

🗺️ How do I find USGS site codes?

Browse the official USGS Water Data dashboard, or use the USGS site-search tool to filter by state, county, or river basin. Site codes range from 8 to 15 digits.

⏰ Can I schedule regular runs?

Yes. Use Apify Schedules to trigger hourly pulls for real-time dashboards or daily pulls for long-term archives. Webhooks can push fresh observations straight into Slack, your warehouse, or a downstream alerting service.

⚖️ Is this data legal to use?

USGS data is in the public domain in the United States. You can use, redistribute, and embed it in your own products without restriction. Attribution to USGS is appreciated but not required.

💼 Can I use this data commercially?

Yes. USGS data is public-domain, so commercial use is permitted without licensing fees.

💳 Do I need a paid Apify plan to use this Actor?

No. The free Apify plan is enough for testing and small runs (10 records per run). A paid plan lifts the limit and gives you access to scheduling, higher concurrency, and larger datasets.

🔁 What happens if a run fails or gets interrupted?

Apify automatically retries transient errors. If a run still fails, you can inspect the log in the Runs tab, fix the input, and re-run. Partial datasets from failed runs are preserved so you never lose progress.

🆘 What if I need help?

Our support team is here to help. Contact us through the Apify platform or use the Tally form linked below.

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🔌 Integrate with any app

USGS Water Services Scraper connects to any cloud service via Apify integrations:

• Make - Automate multi-step workflows
• Zapier - Connect with 5,000+ apps
• Slack - Get real-time observation alerts
• Airbyte - Pipe hydrology data into your warehouse
• GitHub - Trigger runs from commits and releases
• Google Drive - Export datasets straight to Sheets

You can also use webhooks to trigger downstream actions when a run finishes. Push fresh stage readings into your flood-warning system, or alert your operations team in Slack when a threshold is crossed.

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🔗 Recommended Actors

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💡 Pro Tip: browse the complete ParseForge collection for more reference-data scrapers.

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🆘 Need Help? Open our contact form to request a new scraper, propose a custom data project, or report an issue.

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⚠️ Disclaimer: this Actor is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by the US Geological Survey or the Department of the Interior. All trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners. Only publicly available USGS data is collected.