OWPHydroTools :: NWIS Client

This subpackage implements an interface to the USGS NWIS Instantaneous Values Web Service. The primary use for this tool is to populate pandas.Dataframe objects with USGS streamflow data. See the NWIS Client Documentation for a complete list and description of the currently available methods. To report bugs or request new features, submit an issue through the OWPHydroTools Issue Tracker on GitHub.

Installation

In accordance with the python community, we support and advise the usage of virtual environments in any workflow using python. In the following installation guide, we use python's built-in venv module to create a virtual environment in which the tool will be installed. Note this is just personal preference, any python virtual environment manager should work just fine (conda, pipenv, etc. ).

# Create and activate python environment, requires python >= 3.8
$ python3 -m venv venv
$ source venv/bin/activate
$ python3 -m pip install --upgrade pip

# Install nwis_client
$ python3 -m pip install hydrotools.nwis_client

Usage

The following example demonstrates how one might use hydrotools.nwis_client to retrieve USGS streamflow observations.

Code

# Import the NWIS IV Client
from hydrotools.nwis_client.iv import IVDataService

# Retrieve data from a single site
service = IVDataService(
    value_time_label="value_time"
)
observations_data = service.get(
    sites='01646500',
    startDT='2019-08-01',
    endDT='2020-08-01'
    )

# Look at the data
print(observations_data.head())

Output

           value_date variable_name usgs_site_code measurement_unit   value qualifiers  series
0 2019-08-01 04:00:00    streamflow       01646500            ft3/s  4170.0        [A]       0
1 2019-08-01 04:15:00    streamflow       01646500            ft3/s  4170.0        [A]       0
2 2019-08-01 04:30:00    streamflow       01646500            ft3/s  4170.0        [A]       0
3 2019-08-01 04:45:00    streamflow       01646500            ft3/s  4170.0        [A]       0
4 2019-08-01 05:00:00    streamflow       01646500            ft3/s  4170.0        [A]       0

Command Line Interface (CLI)

The hydrotools.nwis_client package includes a command-line utility.

This example demonstrates calling the help page:

$ nwis-client --help

Usage: nwis-client [OPTIONS] [SITES]...

  Retrieve data from the USGS IV Web Service API and write in CSV format.

  Example:

  nwis-client 01013500 02146470

Options:
  -o, --output FILENAME       Output file path
  -s, --startDT TIMESTAMP     Start datetime
  -e, --endDT TIMESTAMP       End datetime
  -p, --parameterCd TEXT      Parameter code
  --comments / --no-comments  Enable/disable comments in output, enabled by
                              default
  --header / --no-header      Enable/disable header in output, enabled by
                              default
  --help                      Show this message and exit.

This example retrieves the last discharge value from two sites:

$ nwis-client 01013500 02146470

# USGS IV Service Data
# 
# value_date: Datetime of measurement (UTC) (character string)
# variable: USGS variable name (character string)
# usgs_site_code: USGS Gage Site Code (character string)
# measurement_unit: Units of measurement (character string)
# value: Measurement value (float)
# qualifiers: Qualifier string (character string)
# series: Series number in case multiple time series are returned (integer)
# 
# Generated at 2022-03-04 21:56:30.296051+00:00
# nwis_client version: 3.2.0
# Source code: https://github.com/NOAA-OWP/hydrotools
# 
value_time,variable_name,usgs_site_code,measurement_unit,value,qualifiers,series
2022-03-04 21:45:00,streamflow,01013500,ft3/s,-999999.00,"['P', 'Ice']",0
2022-03-04 21:50:00,streamflow,02146470,ft3/s,1.04,['P'],0

This example retrieves stage data from two sites for a specific time period:

$ nwis-client -p 00065 -s 2021-06-01T00:00 -e 2021-06-01T01:00 01013500 02146470

# USGS IV Service Data
# 
# value_date: Datetime of measurement (UTC) (character string)
# variable: USGS variable name (character string)
# usgs_site_code: USGS Gage Site Code (character string)
# measurement_unit: Units of measurement (character string)
# value: Measurement value (float)
# qualifiers: Qualifier string (character string)
# series: Series number in case multiple time series are returned (integer)
# 
# Generated at 2022-03-04 21:59:02.508468+00:00
# nwis_client version: 3.2.0
# Source code: https://github.com/NOAA-OWP/hydrotools
# 
value_time,variable_name,usgs_site_code,measurement_unit,value,qualifiers,series
2021-05-31 23:00:00,gage height,01013500,ft,4.28,['A'],0
2021-05-31 23:15:00,gage height,01013500,ft,4.28,['A'],0
2021-05-31 23:30:00,gage height,01013500,ft,4.28,['A'],0
2021-05-31 23:45:00,gage height,01013500,ft,4.28,['A'],0
2021-06-01 00:00:00,gage height,01013500,ft,4.28,['A'],0
2021-05-31 23:00:00,gage height,02146470,ft,3.14,['A'],0
2021-05-31 23:05:00,gage height,02146470,ft,3.14,['A'],0
2021-05-31 23:10:00,gage height,02146470,ft,3.14,['A'],0
2021-05-31 23:15:00,gage height,02146470,ft,3.14,['A'],0
2021-05-31 23:20:00,gage height,02146470,ft,3.14,['A'],0
2021-05-31 23:25:00,gage height,02146470,ft,3.14,['A'],0
2021-05-31 23:30:00,gage height,02146470,ft,3.14,['A'],0
2021-05-31 23:35:00,gage height,02146470,ft,3.14,['A'],0
2021-05-31 23:40:00,gage height,02146470,ft,3.14,['A'],0
2021-05-31 23:45:00,gage height,02146470,ft,3.14,['A'],0
2021-05-31 23:50:00,gage height,02146470,ft,3.14,['A'],0
2021-05-31 23:55:00,gage height,02146470,ft,3.14,['A'],0
2021-06-01 00:00:00,gage height,02146470,ft,3.14,['A'],0