Case Study

Customer Spotlight: USGS

The World’s Largest Implementation of a Commercial Off-The-Shelf Hydrologic System. Ever.
Customer Spotlight: USGS
River flowing through forest

The USGS Trusts Aquarius to Manage Data Collected from over 16,500 Monitoring Sites.

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) relies on Aquarius for use by 3,000 employees of the Water Resources Division to more efficiently manage water time series data nationally from 16,500 stream gauging, groundwater, water quality, and precipitation sites. Big Water Data is being collected – with 1 million time series nationwide and over 58 billion historical data points. The USGS data acquisition system results in 500,000 appends per hour, with multiple parameters per site. By moving to the most modern commercial environmental time series data management platform, the USGS has increased data consistency, comparability, and reliability.

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16,500

Real-Time Gauging Sites

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600,000

Locations

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12 Million

Field Visits

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58 Billion

Historical Data Points

‘Gage to Page’ Data in Minutes.

The Aquarius platform adds and processes over 500,000 USGS data points per hour, and publishes them to the National Water Information System (NWIS) for public access within minutes of transmission. Aquarius is today’s most scalable water data management platform, designed to meet the needs of environmental monitoring organizations of all sizes, from small cities to the world’s largest agencies.

Water is one of seven science mission areas of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). Our mission is to collect and disseminate reliable, impartial, and timely information that is needed to understand the Nation’s water resources.

Customer Quote Image Usgs
U.S. Geological Survey,
Sylvan Lake

USGS Rating Curves Have Been Built in Aquarius Since 2005.

The USGS has trusted the customized Aquarius Graphical Rating and Shift Application Tool (GRSAT) since 2005. It relies on Aquarius to correct and edit time series data, and to build accurate and defensible rating curves across all 50 USGS Water Science Centers. The USGS has reported saving over 59,000 hours per year by using Aquarius GRSAT. According to the USGS, “Use of GRSAT over the past year has shown that about 8 hours of labor are saved on average each year per streamgage – a significant cost savings when applied to the national network of approximately 7,400 gages.” (USGS Fact Sheet 2007). By adopting the full Aquarius Time-Series system, the USGS now anticipates dramatically increasing their time series data management efficiency.

The USGS is, without a doubt, the foremost global leader in surface water science. The world looks to the USGS for leadership, which they generously provide. And now the USGS has put its trust in Aquatic Informatics. I say Aquatic Informatics, not Aquarius, because I believe the USGS has not only selected our product, but it has selected our people as well. Like the USGS, our team is comprised of among the most dedicated, passionate, energetic, and innovative hydrologists, engineers, and IT professionals in the world.

Customer Quote Image Aquatic Informatics
Ed Quilty, President & Founder, Aquatic Informatics

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