NWDTW 2026

This Show and Tell session provides an introductory tour of the modernized USGS Water Data for the Nation interface and tools available at waterdata.usgs.gov.

Hurricane Helene severely impacted the Asheville Field Area. This presentation looks at impacts from the storm as well as recovery efforts that were undertaken by Asheville Field Office staff as well as assistance from many outside sources. This (hopefully) once in a lifetime storm event led to significant damage and loss of data. Significant effort was put into restoring the network, assigning peak gage heights, and conducting indirect measurements to compute discharge data through the event.

To compute discharge using image velocimetry, the measured surface velocity must be related to the depth-averaged velocity; this is typically done using a simple coefficient known as the alpha coefficient. The alpha coefficient is the most significant input to the computation of discharge from imagery that is often not empirically determined, but the resulting discharge value is directly proportional to the value chosen. The USGS database contains more than half a million ADCP measurements - the profiles in these measurements can be used to inform selection of alpha. Results from a compilation of profiles at a variety of sites will be presented.

An expanded overview of key Water Data for the Nation tools—USGS Explore, State Pages, and the National Water Dashboard.

"Did you unplug it and plug it back in?" - every IT Person, ever.
Field visits for simple instrument resets are a costly drain on resources. While most dataloggers have control ports that can power cycle devices and instruments, these ports are often exhausted as sensor density increases. By integrating a microcontroller, we have expanded our control capacity via multi-channel relay boards. Logic within the main datalogger verifies data transmission, validity, and connectivity before communicating with an external microcontroller that manages the power supply to individual devices and instruments. More importantly, we've moved beyond simple "On/Off" control by monitoring individual instrument's current draw in real-time. These data are passed to the primary datalogger, enabling automated notifications if hardware is drawing outside of specifications. Because the entire system can be monitored and controlled remotely, it provides a comprehensive "health check". This reduces unnecessary field visits and equips staff with additional diagnostic information needed to troubleshoot before leaving the office.

The USGS has collected water data for over 135 years. The USGS Fundamental Science Practices (FSP) have been governing water data collection and publication for the past 20 years. How familiar are you with FSP as it pertains to water data? This presentation will (1) provide a broad overview of FSP, (2) show how FSP relates to water data collection and subsequent data publication, and (3) share available OSQI resources useful for when FSP questions arise.

This presentation will accomplish these objectives by examining three focus areas; (1) discussing data collection and approval obligations in SM 502.2 Fundamental Science Practices: Planning and Conducting Data Collection and Research and SM 502.8 Fundamental Science Practices: Review and Approval of Scientific Data for Release, (2) relating adherence of Water Mission Area Techniques and Methods to adherence of Fundamental Science Practices, (3) discussing mechanisms for reporting FSP questions to the Fundamental Science Practices Advisory Council (FSPAC), quality concerns to OSQI resources, and integrity concerns to the USGS Scientific Integrity Officer. Listeners will leave the presentation with a better understanding of how FSP relates to USGS Water data collection and publication and where to turn to when concerns arise.

This presentation will be given by Gary Burke, a staff scientist from the Office of Science Quality and Integrity (OSQI). Gary was a Field Office Chief for over 6 years prior to joining OSQI and had collected NWIS water data for over 20 years.

The USGS Continuous Water-Quality community maintains a large network of real-time instruments. Throughout the country, the USGS is collecting over 6,000 continuous water-quality datasets at over 2,500 sites and measuring more than 8 water-quality parameters (temperature, specific conductance, pH, dissolved oxygen, turbidity, nitrate, chlorophyll, and Fluorescent Dissolved Organic Matter (fDOM)). Discover what CWQ resources are available for staff, who to contact with questions or suggestions, and what efforts are in progress.

Do you have questions about Go2? The modernized Go2 replaced deprecated legacy Go2 scripts to send alerts to field staff about transmission problems, erroneous data, and measurements needed based on current conditions. This session will include hands-on training to set up, customize, and troubleshoot modernized Go2 configurations. We will cover frequently asked questions and tips and tricks for Go2 setup. We want to see varied use cases - bring any questions, suggestions, and issues, and we will work through them. Hydrographers and data managers will gain the skills and knowledge needed to use Go2 for improved site monitoring and management.

Overview of the cause and effect of a moving bed and methods to identify and correct for a moving bed when measuring discharge with an ADCP from a moving boat. This talk will also include a review of the moving-bed test results and what they mean.

This session provides an overview of the current policy landscape for image velocimetry (IVy) within the USGS, with emphasis on Operational Quality Assurance (OQA) expectations and the process for aligning IVy methods with approved national standards. We will discuss where IVy techniques currently stand in the method-approval pipeline, outline the steps required to transition research workflows into fully supported operational methods, and highlight ongoing efforts to ensure consistent, defensible applications across the WMA. Attendees will gain clarity on documentation requirements, approvals, and future guidance that will shape the public release and operational use of IVy tools and products, as well as have the opportunity to share their feedback and needs with leadership.

Traditional trainings often ask for more time than teams can spare. Micro-trainings are a practical alternative: short, focused learning sessions that build skills quickly. In this interactive session, participants will explore strategies for moving beyond one-way lectures by incorporating clear objectives, practical examples, and active learning in brief training formats. Through modeled activities and hands-on practice, participants will leave confident in facilitating short trainings that are effective, efficient, engaging, and immediately useful in the field, office, or lab. Whether mentoring a new hire, reinforcing procedures, or sharing updates, participants will gain instructional techniques that they can use right away,

Learn more about the USGS Continuous Water-Quality Community at this facilitated networking session. Meet your colleagues, make contacts, and discuss parameters and processes. Ever wish you had more time to ask peers about equipment or a challenge? Great ideas often come by having conversations with people about a shared problem or interest. During this session, employees will get the opportunity to share perspectives with a subset of peers working on the same topics.

WaterMAP (https://apps.usgs.gov/watermap) is an interactive web application that brings together comprehensive views of surface water conditions in rivers, lakes, and reservoirs, everywhere in the US. The application allows users to explore water conditions over time using both satellite observations and onsite measurements. We will demonstrate best practices to leverage and integrate each data catalog while highlighting the interactive mapping and visualization capabilities, as well as data search/filter/download functionalities. Live demos will present use cases to improve workflows for USGS hydrologic technicians and scientists. Data product owners and the development team will be available to answer questions.

This session offers a practical, end‑to‑end demonstration of the National Image Management System (NIMS) and the Hydrologic Imagery Visualization and Information System (HIVIS) web application. We will begin by walking through how camera stations are added, edited, and managed within the NIMS Admin Console, highlighting tools for configuration, metadata editing, and system monitoring. The demo then transitions to the HIVIS front‑end application, where we will showcase recent interface updates, new visualization capabilities, and streamlined workflows for viewing and interrogating hydrologic image data. Participants will also be introduced to the broader NIMS API and the pyNIMS Python module, with examples of how these resources enable programmatic access for analysis, automation, and integration with other tools. The session concludes with a brief look at features planned for release this year—including advancements in the AAA process and other workflow enhancements—to give users a clear view of what’s coming next.

This session will give a status update on SAID 2.0 and walk through developing a model so users can see common workflows and ask questions.