readWQPqw: Raw Data Import for Water Quality Portal

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

Raw Data Import for Water Quality Portal

Description

Imports data from the Water Quality Portal. This function gets the data from here: https://www.waterqualitydata.us. There are four required input arguments: siteNumbers, parameterCd, startDate, and endDate. parameterCd can either be a USGS 5-digit code, or a characteristic name. The sites can be either USGS, or other Water Quality Portal offered sites. It is required to use the 'full' site name, such as 'USGS-01234567'.

Usage

readWQPqw(
  siteNumbers,
  parameterCd,
  startDate = "",
  endDate = "",
  tz = "UTC",
  legacy = TRUE,
  querySummary = FALSE,
  ignore_attributes = FALSE,
  convertType = TRUE
)

Arguments

siteNumbers	character site number. This needs to include the full agency code prefix.
parameterCd	vector of USGS 5-digit parameter code or characteristicNames. Leaving this blank will return all of the measured values during the specified time period.
startDate	character starting date for data retrieval in the form YYYY-MM-DD. Default is "" which indicates retrieval for the earliest possible record. Date arguments are always specified in local time.
endDate	character ending date for data retrieval in the form YYYY-MM-DD. Default is "" which indicates retrieval for the latest possible record. Date arguments are always specified in local time.
tz	character to set timezone attribute of dateTime. Default is "UTC", and converts the date times to UTC, properly accounting for daylight savings times based on the data provided tz_cd column. Possible values to provide are "America/New_York","America/Chicago", "America/Denver","America/Los_Angeles", "America/Anchorage", as well as the following which do not use daylight savings time: "America/Honolulu", "America/Jamaica","America/Managua","America/Phoenix", and "America/Metlakatla". See also OlsonNames() for more information on time zones.
legacy	Logical. If TRUE, uses legacy WQP services. Default is TRUE. Setting legacy = FALSE uses WQX3.0 WQP services, which are in-development, use with caution.
querySummary	logical to look at number of records and unique sites that will be returned from this query.
ignore_attributes	logical to choose to ignore fetching site and parameter attributes. Default is FALSE.
convertType	logical, defaults to TRUE. If TRUE, the function will convert the data to dates, datetimes, numerics based on a standard algorithm. If false, everything is returned as a character.

Value

A data frame derived from the default data profile.

There are also several useful attributes attached to the data frame:

Name	Type	Description
url	character	The url used to generate the data
siteInfo	data.frame	A data frame containing information on the requested sites
variableInfo	data.frame	A data frame containing information on the requested parameters
queryTime	POSIXct	The time the data was returned

See Also

readWQPdata(), whatWQPsites(), and importWQP()

Examples

rawPcode <- readWQPqw("USGS-01594440", "01075", "", "")

attr(rawPcode, "siteInfo")
attr(rawPcode, "queryTime")
attr(rawPcode, "url") 

rawCharacteristicName <- readWQPqw("WIDNR_WQX-10032762", "Specific conductance", "", "")
pHsites_legacy <- readWQPqw(c("USGS-05406450", "USGS-05427949", "WIDNR_WQX-133040"),
                        "pH", "", "")
ncol(pHsites_legacy)
attr(pHsites_legacy, "url")
 
# pHsites_modern <- readWQPqw(c("USGS-05406450", "USGS-05427949", "WIDNR_WQX-133040"),
#                         "pH", "", "", legacy = FALSE)
# ncol(pHsites_modern)
# attr(pHsites_modern, "url")
          
nwisEx <- readWQPqw("USGS-04024000", c("34247", "30234", "32104", "34220"), "", "2022-12-20")

DO <- readWQPqw(siteNumbers = "USGS-05288705", 
                parameterCd = "00300",
                convertType = FALSE)

dataRetrieval documentation built on Aug. 8, 2025, 7:03 p.m.