The development of civilizations has always relied on the availability of fresh water. The United States is no exception. We have depended on our lakes, streams, and rivers to supply water and serve as lifelines allowing for growth, development, and expansion into new territory.

As a result of rapid growth in the 1880's, the U.S. population began to branch westward into the drier regions of the country, leaving the usually dependable waterways of the East far behind. Around the same time, John Wesley Powell, the second director of the USGS, requested that streamflow be monitored in eight river basins in the West. His goal was to measure the flow of streams and determine the potential for the irrigation systems that would be so vital to the economic development of this parched region. In 1889, the first U.S. stream-gaging station was established on the Rio Grande near Embudo, New Mexico. At this station, standard streamflow measurement procedures were devised.

JOHN WESLEY POWELL, 1834-1902

Upon establishment of streamflow measurement methods at Embudo, personnel were dispersed to collect streamflow data at other western locations. Within two years the first streamflow measurements in the East were made on the Potomac River at Chain Bridge, near Washington, D.C., and a gaging station was established there on May 1, 1891. By 1895, discharge measurements were being made by the USGS in at least 27 states throughout the country.

Today, the USGS operates and maintains more than 85% of the nation's stream-gaging stations. This includes over 7,000 continuous-record stream-gaging stations in the United States, Puerto Rico, and the Trust Territories of the Pacific Islands.