Web Tools

To help resource managers plan and mitigate long-term drought impacts in the Colorado River Basin, the USGS has launched a platform that brings together science, data, and mapping and analytical tools from across the basin in a central location.

The Three Lakes System of Colorado includes Grand Lake, Shadow Mountain Reservoir, and Granby Reservoir. This system is located within the headwaters of the Upper Colorado River Basin near the west entrance of Rocky Mountain National Park. This geonarrative focuses primarily on the drainage basin of the Three Lakes System and the Colorado River downstream to Windy Gap Reservoir. 

This web application, a summarized compilation of central Colorado water chemistry datasets from USGS and EPA, identifies legacy mine sites within the headwaters of central Colorado that could be good candidates for future remediation work based on stream metal concentrations, the number and complexity of mine features, and the potential for high natural background metal concentrations.

The National Water Dashboard (NWD) is a mobile, interactive tool that provides real-time information on water levels, weather, and flood forecasts - all in one place on a computer, smartphone, or other mobile device. The NWD presents real-time stream, lake and reservoir, precipitation, and groundwater data from more than 13,500 USGS observation stations across the country.

The National Water Information System (NWIS) Mapper provides access to over 1.5 million sites contained in the USGS National Water Information System (NWIS), including sites where current and historical surface-water, groundwater, springs, and atmospheric data has been collected. Users can search by site type, data type, site number, or place.

The USGS monitors current streamflow and water-quality conditions at various sites in the Animas and San Juan River Basins in Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah, including areas below the Gold King Mine release area. These streamgages provide continuous data on streamflow and select water-quality constituents including specific conductance, water temperature, pH, and turbidity.

Aquatic invertebrates are a key component of freshwater ecosystems, and an understanding of aquatic invertebrate taxonomy is central to freshwater science. The North American Aquatic Macroinvertebrate Digital Reference Collection (NAAMDRC) was created by the USGS Aquatic Experimental Lab (AXL) to provide users with high-quality digital microscopy photographs.

An easy-to-use, Web-based geodatabase of historical flood and paleoflood information which includes links to sources of flood data.  The interface makes this collection of information useful to water-resource managers to better understand the historic events for improved flood-frequency estimates of the largest floods in Colorado. 

Web based application to compare, on a real-time basis, estimated dissolved-solids concentration and load as a surrogate for water-quality conditions in the Arkansas River and Fountain Creek in Colorado and determine whether future water-quality conditions are significantly different from background conditions.