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TSTool / Datastore Reference / USGS-NWIS-RDB

Overview

The UsgsNwisRdb time series input type corresponds to the United States Geological Survey (USGS) National Water Information System (NWIS) RDB format. A number of RDB variations are available but currently only the surface water daily format is supported. Data files can be created by saving USGS NWIS website data to a text file or use the TSTool WebGet command. The example below shows the format of a daily surface water file. Important comments about the file format are:

  • The file is divided into a header section (top) and data section (bottom). Comments can occur only at the top and are lines that begin with #.
  • Optional data flags are saved with the data values, if available (e.g., e indicates estimated data).
  • HTML remnants may be present at the end of the file. These lines are stripped out as the file is processed.
#
# U.S. Geological Survey
# National Water Information System
# Retrieved: 2002-01-28 13:35:25 EST
#
# This file contains published daily mean streamflow data.
#
# This information includes the following fields:
#
#  agency_cd   Agency Code
#  site_no     USGS station number
#  dv_dt       date of daily mean streamflow
#  dv_va       daily mean streamflow value, in cubic-feet per-second
#  dv_cd       daily mean streamflow value qualification code
#
# Sites in this file include:
#  USGS 03451500 FRENCH BROAD RIVER AT ASHEVILLE, NC
#
#
agency_cd   site_no dv_dt   dv_va   dv_cd
5s  15s 10d 12n 3s
USGS    03451500    1895-10-01  740 
USGS    03451500    1895-10-02  740 
...
USGS    03451500    1985-01-20  1100    e
USGS    03451500    1985-01-21  1100    e
USGS    03451500    1985-01-22  1100    e
...
USGS    03451500    2000-09-28  675
USGS    03451500    2000-09-29  597
USGS    03451500    2000-09-30  550
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Standard Time Series Properties

The standard time series identifier for USGS NWIS RDB time series is of the form:

Location.DataSource.DataType.Interval~UsgsNwisRdb~PathToFile

The limited support of this file format assumes the following:

  • The location part of the time series identifier is taken from the second field (site_no) in the data records.
  • The data source part of the time series identifier is taken from the first field (agency_cd) in the data records.
  • The data type is assigned as Streamflow (interpretation of the verbose dv_va field in the header is not implemented).
  • The data interval is assigned as 1Day (interpretation of the verbose dv_va field in the header is not implemented).
  • The input type is set to UsgsNwisRdb (USGSNWIS was used in the past) indicating the format of input.
  • The input name is set to the absolute or relative path to the file.
  • The units are assigned as CFS.
  • The missing data value is assigned to -999.0 (gaps in data records will result in this value).
  • The description is set to the information after the Sites in this file include: line. It is assumed that only one time series per file is used.

Limitations

USGS NWIS RDB files have the following limitations:

  • Currently only the daily surface water format has been tested. Additional support will be added in the future.
  • Although data flags are read, no standard flag values are enforced (the software user will need to know the meaning of the flags to use them properly).