read_waterdata_peaks: Get USGS Peak Data

In dataRetrieval: Retrieval Functions for USGS and EPA Hydrology and Water Quality Data

Get USGS Peak Data

Description

Annual peak flow values are the maximum instantaneous streamflow values recorded at a particular site for the entire water year from October 1 to September 30. Note that the annual peak flow value may not occur at the same time the maximum water level occurs due to conditions such as backwater, tidal fluctuations, etc.

Usage

read_waterdata_peaks(
  monitoring_location_id = NA_character_,
  parameter_code = NA_character_,
  properties = NA_character_,
  time_series_id = NA_character_,
  unit_of_measure = NA_character_,
  value = NA,
  last_modified = NA_character_,
  water_year = NA_character_,
  year = NA_character_,
  month = NA_character_,
  day = NA_character_,
  time_of_day = NA_character_,
  peak_since = NA_character_,
  skipGeometry = NA,
  time = NA_character_,
  bbox = NA,
  ...,
  allow_incomplete_dates = FALSE,
  convertType = getOption("dataRetrieval.convertType"),
  no_paging = getOption("dataRetrieval.no_paging"),
  chunk_size = getOption("dataRetrieval.site_chunk_size_meta"),
  limit = getOption("dataRetrieval.limit"),
  attach_request = getOption("dataRetrieval.attach_request")
)

Arguments

monitoring_location_id	A unique identifier representing a single monitoring location. This corresponds to the id field in the monitoring-locations endpoint. Monitoring location IDs are created by combining the agency code of the agency responsible for the monitoring location (e.g. USGS) with the ID number of the monitoring location (e.g. 02238500), separated by a hyphen (e.g. USGS-02238500). Multiple monitoring_location_ids can be requested as a character vector.
parameter_code	Parameter codes are 5-digit codes used to identify the constituent measured and the units of measure. A complete list of parameter codes and associated groupings can be found at https://api.waterdata.usgs.gov/ogcapi/v0/collections/parameter-codes/items. Multiple parameter_codes can be requested as a character vector.
properties	A vector of requested columns to be returned from the query. Available options are: geometry, time_series_id, monitoring_location_id, parameter_code, peak_id, unit_of_measure, value, last_modified, time, water_year, year, month, day, time_of_day, peak_since. The default (NA) will return all columns of the data.
time_series_id	A unique identifier representing a single time series. This corresponds to the id field in the time-series-metadata endpoint.
unit_of_measure	A human-readable description of the units of measurement associated with an observation.
value	The value of the observation. Values are transmitted as strings in the JSON response format in order to preserve precision.
last_modified	The last time a record was refreshed in our database. This may happen due to regular operational processes and does not necessarily indicate anything about the measurement has changed. You can query this field using date-times or intervals, adhering to RFC 3339, or using ISO 8601 duration objects. Intervals may be bounded or half-bounded (double-dots at start or end). Examples: A date-time: "2018-02-12T23:20:50Z" A bounded interval: "2018-02-12T00:00:00Z/2018-03-18T12:31:12Z" Half-bounded intervals: "2018-02-12T00:00:00Z/.." or "../2018-03-18T12:31:12Z" Duration objects: "P1M" for data from the past month or "PT36H" for the last 36 hours Only features that have a last_modified that intersects the value of datetime are selected. See also Details below for more information.
water_year	The water year (running from October 1st to September 30th) a peak occurred.
year	The calendar year a peak occurred.
month	The calendar month a peak occurred. If null, the month a peak occurred is unknown.
day	The day of the month a peak occurred. If null, the day a peak occurred is unknown.
time_of_day	The time of day a peak occurred. If null, the time of day a peak occurred is unknown.
peak_since	If not null, this record represents the peak value for the parameter code since the year contained in "peak_since".
skipGeometry	This parameter can be used to skip response geometries for each feature. The returning object will be a data frame with no spatial information. The default NA will not specify the argument in the request.
time	The date an observation represents. You can query this field using date-times or intervals, adhering to RFC 3339, or using ISO 8601 duration objects. Intervals may be bounded or half-bounded (double-dots at start or end). Examples: A date-time: "2018-02-12T23:20:50Z" A bounded interval: "2018-02-12T00:00:00Z/2018-03-18T12:31:12Z" Half-bounded intervals: "2018-02-12T00:00:00Z/.." or "../2018-03-18T12:31:12Z" Duration objects: "P1M" for data from the past month or "PT36H" for the last 36 hours Only features that have a time that intersects the value of datetime are selected. If a feature has multiple temporal properties, it is the decision of the server whether only a single temporal property is used to determine the extent or all relevant temporal properties. See also Details below for more information.
bbox	Only features that have a geometry that intersects the bounding box are selected.The bounding box is provided as four or six numbers, depending on whether the coordinate reference system includes a vertical axis (height or depth). Coordinates are assumed to be in crs 4326. The expected format is a numeric vector structured: c(xmin,ymin,xmax,ymax). Another way to think of it is c(Western-most longitude, Southern-most latitude, Eastern-most longitude, Northern-most longitude).
...	Not used. Included to help differentiate official Water Data API arguments from more seldom used, optional dataRetrieval-specific arguments.
allow_incomplete_dates	Specifically in the peaks data, exact peak dates are not always known. Sometimes peaks are known just for the year, sometimes they are known to the year and month, and and sometimes to the exact date. This argument determines if incomplete dates + uncertain month/day values are allowed in the "time" column so that it can be a complete Date object (TRUE), or whether to set those dates to NA (FALSE). Peaks with uncertain days are stored on the first of the month, and those with uncertain month stored on January 1. Default is FALSE.
convertType	logical, defaults to TRUE. If TRUE, the function will convert the data to dates, any qualifiers to string vector and reorder the returned data frame.
no_paging	logical, defaults to FALSE. If TRUE, the data will be requested from a native csv format. This can be dangerous because the data will cut off at 50,000 rows without indication that more data is available. Use TRUE with caution.
chunk_size	Number of monitoring_location_ids to chunk requests into. The default for functions that don't generally return long-term data records is 250, while the default for time series functions is 10. Setting to NA will eliminate site chunking, giving users full control.
limit	numeric, The optional limit parameter is used to control the subset of the selected features that should be returned in each page. The maximum allowable limit is 50,000. It may be beneficial to set this number lower if your internet connection is spotty. The default (NA) will set the limit to the maximum allowable limit for the service.
attach_request	logical, defaults to TRUE. If set to TRUE, the full request sent to the Water Data API is attached as an attribute to the data set.

Details

You can also use a vector of length 2 for any time queries (such as time or last_modified). The first value is the starting date (or datetime), the second value is the ending date(or datetime). NA's within the vector indicate a half-bound date. For example, time = c("2024-01-01", NA) will return all data starting at 2024-01-01. time = c(NA, "2024-01-01") will return all data from the beginning of the timeseries until 2024-01-01. By default, time is assumed UTC, although time zone attributes will be accommodated. As an example, setting time = as.POSIXct(c("2021-01-01 12:00:00", "2021-01-01 14:00"), tz = "America/New_York") will request data that between noon and 2pm eastern time on 2021-01-01. All time values RETURNED from the service are UTC with the exception of daily data, which returns time values in local dates.

Examples

wi_peaks <- read_waterdata_combined_meta(
               state_name = "Wisconsin",
               data_type = "Peaks",
               parameter_code = "00060")


dv_data_sf <- read_waterdata_peaks(
               monitoring_location_id = wi_peaks$monitoring_location_id[1],
               parameter_code = "00060")

incomplete_dates_not_allowed <- read_waterdata_peaks(
               monitoring_location_id = "USGS-06334330",
               parameter_code = "00060")
incomplete_dates_not_allowed$time
incomplete_dates_allowed <- read_waterdata_peaks(
               monitoring_location_id = "USGS-06334330",
               parameter_code = "00060",
               allow_incomplete_dates = TRUE)
incomplete_dates_allowed$time

dataRetrieval documentation built on May 28, 2026, 9:06 a.m.