National Databases

STORET SDWIS NWIS NAWQA

Nutrient Criteria NCOD NASQAN

BASINS Surf Your Watershed EMPACT

Envirofacts WATERS

STORET (STOrage and RETrieval)
STORET, including the STORET Legacy Data Center (LDC) and the Modernized STORET, is the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA)’s largest computerized environmental data system. Both systems, LDC and STORET, are online databases that contain parametric water quality, biological, and physical monitoring data collected within the fifty states, territories, and jurisdictions of the U.S., along with portions of Canada and Mexico. The LDC contains historical water quality data dating back to the early part of the 20th century and collected up to the end of 1998. Modernized STORET, or simply STORET, stores data collected in the beginning of 1999, along with older data that has been properly documented and migrated from the LCD. This data is typically generated by state, local, and federal agencies and private entities. STORET contains metadata including sample location (e.g., latitude, longitude, state, county, Hydrologic Unit Code and a brief site identification), when the sample was collected, the medium sampled (e.g., water, sediment, fish tissue), and the sponsoring organization. STORET also contains information about why the data were collected, sampling methods, and analytical methods (including the laboratory conducting the analyses). It also stores information related to the quality control checks used when sampling, handling the samples, and analyzing the data; and the personnel responsible for the data.

SDWIS (Safe Drinking Water Information System)
SDWIS is the USEPA's national regulatory compliance database storing information on the nation's approximately 175,000 public water systems and violations of drinking water regulations. Designed to replace the system known as FRDS (Federal Reporting Data System), SDWIS contains information reported by states as required by the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA).

NWIS (National Water Information System)
The National Water Information System (NWIS) is a national database created by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) to serve as repository for the nation’s water quality data. NWIS, which is a compilation of several other USGS databases, includes information on sampling sites, groundwater levels in wells, and water flow and levels in streams, lakes, and springs. Also stored in the database is the chemical and physical data for streams, lakes, springs, and wells. Some of these data from selected surface and groundwater are transmitted and available online in real time.

NAWQA (National Water Quality Monitoring Program)
The USGS NAWQA Program provides data about water chemistry, hydrology, land use, stream habitat, and aquatic life in more than 50 major river basins and aquifers covering nearly all fifty states. The program collects data on nutrients, pesticides, volatile organic compounds, and trace elements, providing a framework for national and regional water quality assessments. These assessments will identify water quality changes and trends and their causes. The first two years of any NAWQA Program involve compilation and analysis of existing data on water quality conditions, hydrology, geology, and changes in land-use activities and management practices. In addition to USGS data, information and methods developed by other federal agencies, as well as by state and local agencies, universities, and volunteer organizations, are reviewed and integrated as appropriate. A subsequent three-year period of data collection and analysis follows the first step of collection of preliminary information. For each study unit, 3- to 5-year periods of intensive data collection and analysis will be alternated with 5- to 6-year periods of less intensive study and monitoring.

NCOD (National Contaminant Occurrence Database)
The NCOD supports the USEPA in identifying contaminants for regulation and subsequent regulation development. The NCOD contains occurrence data from both Public Water Systems (PWSs) and other sources (like the U.S. Geological Survey National Water Information System) on physical, chemical, microbial and radiological contaminants. Query results include summaries but no actual analysis; users can build a set of data to download and analyze for a specific purpose.

NASQAN (National Stream Quality Accounting Network)
NASQAN is a USGS database containing water chemistry and sediment data collected from several major rivers throughout the USA. Physical and chemical measurements made at NASQAN stations include basic water quality, major ions, nutrients, pesticides, and suspended sediments. Aggregation of comparable information obtained through data analysis from the study units will be used to explain differences and similarities in observed water quality conditions among study areas.

Nutrient Criteria
USEPA developed the Nutrient Criteria database to store and analyze nutrient water quality data and to serve as resource for states, tribes, and others in establishing scientifically defensible numeric nutrient criteria. It contains ambient data converted from EPA's Legacy STOrage and RETrieval (STORET) data system, the USGS National Stream Quality Accounting Network (NASQAN) data, and National Water Quality Assessment (NAWQA) data. Other sources include universities, states, and tribes. The ultimate purpose of the data is to develop ecoregional waterbody-specific numeric nutrient criteria. This database will also be used by USEPA to develop ecoregionally representative nutrient criteria for all waterbodies of the United States.

BASINS (Better Assessment Science Integrating Point and Nonpoint Sources)
BASINS is a computer-based environmental analysis system developed by USEPA for use by regional, state, and local agencies in performing watershed- and water-quality-based studies. It was developed to address three objectives:

• To facilitate examination of environmental information;
• To support analysis of environmental systems;
• To provide a framework for examining management alternatives.

BASINS integrates a geographic information system (GIS), national watershed data, and state-of-the-art environmental assessment and modeling tools into one package to quickly assess large amounts of point and nonpoint source data. In addition to several products for watershed assessment, the database stores statistical summaries of water quality monitoring for 50 physical and chemical-related parameters. Parameter-specific statistics are computed by each station in 5-year intervals from 1970 to 1994.

Surf Your Watershed
Surf Your Watershed is a database developed by the USEPA that organizes and presents aquatic resource information on approximately 2,000 watersheds in the 50 US states. This database contains several environmental data products developed from existing national water quality databases. The database provides overall assessment (contaminant level and indicators) rather than raw data for water sources and watersheds. Its strength is that it contains documentation of the data sources used and helps the user to locate valuable source data.

EMPACT (Environmental Monitoring for Public Access and Community Tracking)
The Environmental Monitoring for Public Access and Community Tracking (EMPACT) Program was created to bring people current (time-relevant) environmental information in a user-friendly format. EPA is supporting the EMPACT program by enabling selected urban areas to monitor, interpret, and communicate real-time data. These areas include Des Moines; Washington, D.C.; Cincinnati; and New Orleans. Please click on the links below for more information. Aggregated results from physical and chemical data can be found at most of the EMPACT sites for selected locations.

• Des Moines Water Works 
• Chesapeake Bay EMPACT 
• Ohio River EMPACT 
• Jefferson Parish EMPACT 

Envirofacts
The Envirofacts Warehouse provides the public with direct access to the USEPA’s databases. Users may retrieve environmental information from databases on Air, Chemicals, Facility Information, Grants/Funding, Hazardous Waste, Superfund, Toxic Releases, and Water Permits, Drinking Water, Drinking Water Contaminant Occurrence, and Drinking Water Microbial and Disinfection Byproduct Information (Information Collection Rule [ICR]). Online queries allow data to be retrieved from several databases at once, or from one database at a time, and users can create reports or generate maps of environmental information using several Mapping Applications. Information about the spatial data used by Mapping Applications is also available.

WATERS (Watershed Assessment, Tracking & Environmental Results)
WATERS was developed by USEPA to quickly identify and generate summary reports on the status of individual waterbodies of a state. Since WATERS is a compilation of two USEPA databases (Water Quality Standards and TMDL Tracking System) and the USGS National Hydrographic data set (NHD), the database is able to provide information on all impaired waters listed under section 303(d) of the Clean Water Act, including their designated uses and criteria. After completion, the database will provide information on all 50 states and will be linked to sources containing data on ambient and drinking water quality, polluted runoff, fish consumption advisories, etc.