Virginia DEQ - Water Monitoring

Water Quality Monitoring Data Retrieval Help

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What is the Water Quality Monitoring Data Retrieval Application?

The Water Quality Monitoring Data Retrieval Application was developed to allow users to pull water quality monitoring data directly from Virginia DEQ databases. The application allows users to select a combination of specific monitoring stations, date ranges and/or chemical and biological parameters for which to retrieve data. That data is returned to the user in one of four file formats specified by the user. This application queries approximately 4.5 million pieces of data, so please be patient. It may take up to one minute for the next page to appear as you prepare your query.

How do I determine what watershed I live in?

By using the Interactive Map as a starting point, you can zoom into your area of interest. Then select either the River Basins, Watershed or Hydrologic Unit (HUC) layer by placing a check in the "Visible" checkbox (and un-checking the other layers if checked) and clicking on the layer name itself (which turns the layer name bold) to make it the active layer. Next, click on the "Select Feature" tool on the left toolbar. Click on the map itself to select either a River Basin, Watershed or Hydrologic Unit depending on which layer you have active. At the bottom of the screen, the name (along with some additional data) of the feature will appear. Simply click on the number in the "CLICK TO RETRIEVE MONITORING DATA" column, and a new window will pop open with a list of monitoring stations.

How do I retrieve water quality monitoring data using the application?

Once you have selected River Basin, Watershed or Hydrologic Unit (HUC) by using either the Interactive Map or the Query Form, the station results screen will appear. At this screen, you can select the specific station(s) you wish to retrieve data for by checking the box by each. By not checking any stations, data for all the stations displayed will be retrieved. It is recommend that you limit retrievals to a selected list of stations in order to keep the dataset manageable. On this screen, you may also set a date range for the data to be retrieved. Once again, it is suggested that a date range be used to keep the dataset manageable. Once you are satisfied with your selections, click the "Select Parameters" button at the bottom of the screen.

At the parameter select screen, you can select one or several parameter groups, or click the "ALL PARAMETERS" checkbox to retrieve all the data for the selected stations. At the bottom of the page, select the export file type (see below for more details on file types) and click the "Generate Table" button to create your dataset.

At the next screen, simply follow the directions to download your dataset.

What are Parameter Groups?

Parameter Groups are logical groupings of chemical and biological monitoring parameters to allow for the easy retrieval of data. For instance, the fecal coliform, e coli and total coliform parameters are all found in the bacteria parameter group. On the parameter group select page you can click on the individual parameter groups and a new window will pop up listing the parameters included in the group.

What are the different export file types?

The application allows data to be exported in one of four different file types. Three of the file types are comma delimited, double quote field qualified text. This format is easily imported into programs like Microsoft Access or Excel. The other file type is extensible markup language or XML. This format is also text based and created to structure, store and to send information.

I retrieved the data I wanted, now how do I look at it?

Any program that can handle CSV or XML files should be able to open the datasets returned by the application. As mentioned above, Microsoft Access and Excel can easily read both file formats.

When I open the data in Excel, why doesn't the Collection_Date_Time display properly?

Excel is just having trouble deciding what format to use to display the data. To properly format the column, right click on the column header, select "Format Cells", select the "Numbers" tab, select the "Date" category, then choose the type of date format you want. Click the "OK" button and your dates will be formatted.

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