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September 19, 2017

Improvements for USGS Water Data for the Nation

  • Hydrograph bug fixed where data gaps would sometimes incorrectly be connected across the gap when estimated data immediately adjoined the gap.
  • Water-Year Summary report bugs fixed where (1) some reports were not available for viewing, and (2) a table header would print incorrectly in some web browsers.
  • Ratings depot bug fixed where it incorrectly reported all ratings updating each night in certain east-coast states.
  • Surface water field measurements columns have been removed (rating number, shift adjustment, percent difference) because of underlying software-technology changes.
  • Instantaneous Data Archive is no longer linked to, as its data have been integrated into USGS Water Data for the Nation.
  • Ratings depot EXSA output properly shows both BREAKPOINT and OFFSET information.

Bugfixes for waterservices.usgs.gov

  • Groundwater levels service bug fixed where WaterML 2 output dropped precision in tenths or smaller places when value had trailing zeroes (for example, 6.90 versus 6.9)
  • All XML output formats bug fixed where, on rare occasions, erroneous text was inserted unexpectedly between tags.
  • Daily-values data bug fixed where data before 2007-10-01 sometimes incorrectly had illogical remark codes (for example, [91]).


New feature—revised-records metadata available for time series data

USGS staff, on rare occasions, must revise water data after they have received final approval. Publicizing the fact of these revisions has been challenging historically. Beginning in 2017, USGS Water Data for the Nation systematically reports the presence of revised time-series data (instantaneous values and daily values) in three ways:

  1. A remark code of "R" is associated with any data value in tabular outputs when it has been revised.
  2. Tab-delimited outputs include an extra comment line explaining data in the file have been revised.
  3. Web pages indicate the presence of revised records in a table or plot with a clickable link similar to this:

revised_record_statement

If the link is selected, a page appears offering more detailed text explanations about the nature of the revisions.

At this time, only time-series water data offer this feature. This capability will be added for other (non time-series) water data as underlying software improvements allow.