NWISweb Decommission Campaign Summary
Summary of the NWISweb webpage decommissions ongoing from October 2024 through February 2027
NWISweb launched real-time data pages in 1995 and today it hosts more than 7 million annual unique visitors, billions of successful page requests, and terabytes of data delivered. After several years of modernization, we are beginning the final decommissioning or turning off of legacy NWISweb webpages held on https://waterdata.usgs.gov . This means that pages that you may have relied on for years are going away.
We recognize that many of you rely on these legacy pages and don’t want to see the legacy pages disappear; however, technical considerations and aging architecture have made the decommission imperative. The legacy webpages are held up by infrastructure that is no longer reliable and does not meet web and security standards of the 21st century.
Over the next three years, from October 2024 through February 2027, we will decommission NWISweb. We will do this in three targeted campaigns, which will take place between the months of October and February in any given year (the lowest web traffic time of the year). We are making extra effort to avoid making changes while there are major water events like floods and hurricanes. By the end of the third campaign in early 2027, all NWISweb pages will be decommissioned and no longer available.
Each campaign includes a set of pages that will be decommissioned during the campaign. We expect the bulk of the pages will be down by February 2026 in campaign 2, and all of the legacy NWISweb pages will be down by February 2027 in campaign 3.
This blog describes decommission activities for NWISweb pages located on https://waterdata.usgs.gov , but we will also be replacing WaterServices (https://waterservices.usgs.gov/ ). Stay tuned for upcoming changes to WaterServices by following the blog or subscribing to our newsletter .
Table 1: NWISweb Decommission Campaigns
| Campaign | Timeline | Key NWISweb Pages Removed* |
|---|---|---|
| Campaign 1 | October 2024 – February 2025 | Daily Values (/dv), Current Conditions (/current and /rt), NWIS Home (ends with /nwis) |
| Campaign 2 | October 2025 – February 2026 | WaterWatch(waterwatch.usgs.gov),NWISmapper (maps.waterdata.usgs.gov) |
| Campaign 3 | October 2026 – February 2027 | Legacy Current Conditions Location Pages (/uv) |
Quick tip: Want to know when your webpage will be affected? Look at the URL in your browser window for your favorite page (for example, https://waterdata.usgs.gov/ca/nwis/rt). If it contains /dv, /current, /rt, or ends with /nwis you will be affected during the first campaign.
A full list of pages impacted will be included in the campaign-specific blog.
Campaign Activities
Two categories of activities will occur in each campaign:
- Legacy NWISweb Decommissions
- URL cleanups
Legacy NWISweb Decommissions
What is happening?
Legacy NWISweb pages will be redirected to modern Water Data for the Nation (WDFN) webpages. This means when you go to a bookmarked legacy URL, that link will no longer take you to the legacy page, but you will see a new page instead. For example, if you went to the legacy home page (waterdata.usgs.gov), you will be redirected to a new home page. The legacy home page will no longer be accessible.
We will work to reindex our pages on search engines, so if you get to our pages by a search engine, the legacy web pages will drop off these search engines in about a month’s time.
After a year of a redirect, the legacy URLs will no longer redirect you to a new webpage. Instead, you will receive the message “404: No Page Found” because the legacy page no longer exists.
What does this mean for you?
You should update your bookmarks to the new URL. Legacy pages you used to be able to find using search engines will stop showing up in the search results.
Challenge: It can be challenging to systematically redirect web traffic to the most useful features in our new pages as our pages support a very broad set of use cases and users. In order to best support the most users, the team has designed straightforward redirects that cover the most common uses of our pages.
If there is not a direct replacement to a feature, the users will be redirected to the campaign-specific blog to provide more information. A minority of users will be using uncommon features which will not be well supported by the default redirect. Details on how best to use our WDFN services and webpages will be provided in the campaign-specific blogs, and you can reach out to us at wdfn@usgs.gov to support you through the process.
URL Cleanups
As NWISweb is decommissioned, the URLs (web addresses) associated with the legacy pages will change. We will start by redirecting users who navigate to a legacy URL to the most similar WDFN replacement page, as described in the previous section. That redirect from the legacy page to the new WDFN page will remain in place for about a year. About a year after the redirect goes into effect, the legacy URL will be completely decommissioned and the redirect will be removed. At this time, and any user that goes to the legacy URL will receive a “404: No Page Found” message. This year-long grace period is to help users find the best place to reset their bookmarks in WDFN pages and ensure the search engines are no longer pointing users to legacy pages.
By 2027, all legacy URLs will be removed completely from the website as part of our URL cleanup. This will break any bookmarks still pointing to it, so we encourage users take action early to reset bookmarks.
How do I avoid getting a broken bookmark? Identify the pages you rely on; check out the associated WDFN page if you haven’t seen it before.
Move your bookmarks early. If you use a bookmark to a decommissioned page, consider taking the following steps:
- Explore the new page! Many of our new pages can be configured to your liking and the default state may not be the best match for what you want to see when the page loads. Press buttons and change your views of the data until you find the one that works best for you. If this page doesn’t seem like it fits what you were doing before, review the campaign-specific blog to see if we have any advice. Reach out to wdfn@usgs.gov with questions, we are here to help.
- Reset your bookmark. Once you have the page configured as you like or have found a better page to use, make sure to reset your bookmarks. The redirects will be up for 1 year but after that you will lose direct access with your current bookmark.
How can I stay up to date with the campaigns?
- Blog: A blog will be released prior to the campaign kicking off to spread the word on what is included in the campaign. As the campaign is ongoing and decommissions are starting to roll through, this campaign blog will be updated with additional guidance on special use cases that may need extra support to get resettled in WDFN ecosystem.
- Webinar: A public webinar will be held at the beginning of the campaign to detail the scope of the campaign and answer questions.
- Attend the webinar on Campaign 1. On Thursday, December 19th at 2 PM EST / 11 AM PST, join our Teams Live Event to learn about the NWISweb decommission. Registration is required! Register for the event here .
- Newsletters: Announcement of the campaign will be included in the quarterly WDFN newsletter which you can see past issues of and subscribe to on our website .
- Banners: Banners will go up on WDFN and legacy pages to announce the campaign.
Campaign-specific Blogs
Quick links to campaign-specific blogs:
- NWISweb Decommission Campaign 1
- NWISweb Decommission Campaign 2 (not yet released)
- NWISweb Decommission Campaign 3 (not yet released)
Related Posts
NWISweb Decommission Campaign 1
December 6, 2024
This blog will share information on NWISweb Decommission Campaign 1, the first of a set of three campaigns to decommission legacy NWISweb pages currently hosted at https://waterdata.
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