Summer 2024 Impacts to WaterServices
WaterServices databases are receiving a major version update to meet security and dependency requirements.
WaterServices databases are receiving a major version update to meet security and dependency requirements. Beginning August 5, 2024, mandatory database updates will begin, and the following WaterService format return types will be permanently discontinued:
- Instantaneous Values (IV) WaterML2
- Groundwater (GW) Levels WaterML2
- Groundwater (GW) Levels RDB
No disruption in the availability of USGS hydrologic data is expected to occur as a result of the update. After August 5, 2024, web service requests to the impacted endpoints will return 503 “service unavailable” errors.
The JSON return type will continue to function as intended for both IV and GW Levels endpoints. Users should transition from WaterML2 and RDB return types to JSON to continue receiving data. The test tools on the WaterServices home page can be used to build and test replacement queries. Moving forward, the JSON return type will be the recommended data format to use when requesting data from WaterServices. All available formats for all data available using WaterServices are described at https://waterservices.usgs.gov .
We understand this loss of these formats may require changes to downstream data systems. Please reach out to GS-W_Waterdata_Support@usgs.gov with questions or support requests.
Categories:
Keywords:
Related Posts
WQX3.0 Data Now Available on the Water Quality Portal
May 20, 2024
The Water Quality Portal (WQP) is the largest publicly available water quality data warehouse in the United States. It integrates publicly available data from many providers and outputs those data in a common format, known as the Water Quality Exchange (WQX) standard. Today, it contains hundreds of millions of water quality records from over 2 million locations. Visualizations such as Figure 1 can help to show the distribution of these records across the nation. Hundreds of organizations – including multiple federal agencies, every state and territory, many Tribal Nations, and community science groups – are currently sharing their water quality data with others through the WQP. This important data warehouse integrates and serves diverse physical, chemical, and biological water quality data (observations, measurements, and samples) in a very detailed and common format. The standard used to describe these data has been updated to a new version, WQX3.0. This data exchange standard supersedes prior versions (WQX1.0, WQX2.0, WQX2.1, and WQX2.2).
Advanced Check Status Users
May 19, 2024
Here at WDFN, we employ user-centered design to build better products and reduce risk. This blog is one of a five-part series on users of WDFN: Are You a USGS Water Data User? | Water Data For The Nation Blog .
User-Centered Design - WDFN Multi-Location Functionality
August 18, 2025
User-centered design is a process where we focus our designs based on the context and the needs of our users. We involve users throughout our agile and user-centered development process. The core principles of user-centered design are to learn about the users, build for their needs, and refine your designs based on their feedback.
This blog post focuses on how we used the core principles of user-centered design to modernize the Water Data for the Nation (WDFN) multi-location functionality. Learn more about user-centered design in our previous blog.User-Centered Design
June 8, 2022
The USGS Water Resources Mission Area (WMA) is the largest provider of real time and historical water information in the world. A major part of our work on information delivery is to build modern web applications and APIs to make these data publicly available.
Check Status Users
December 29, 2021
Here at WDFN, we employ user-centered design to build better products and reduce risk. This blog is one of a five-part series on users of WDFN: Are You a USGS Water Data User? | Water Data For The Nation Blog .