Delaware • New Jersey • Pennsylvania
New York • United States of America
- Aquatic Life Designated Use Project
- Bacteria Monitoring
- Biomonitoring Program
- Chlorides Monitoring
- Contaminants of Emerging Concern
- Delaware Estuary Water Quality Monitoring Program
- Dissolved Oxygen and Nutrients
- Modeling
- Other Monitoring (e.g., Toxicity, Fish Tissue, Metals)
- PCBs and PMPs
- Special Protection Waters (SPW)
- Water Resource Data Sets
- Introduction
- Download Data Sets for Select DRBC Monitoring Projects
- Select DRBC Water Resource Data using R
- Download Water Use and Projection Data
- Water Quality Data Explorer Applications
- Other DRBC Data/Maps
- Other WQ Data/Info Links
- Related Resources
Reliably-collected, scientific data support Commission management programs and help evaluate emerging threats to the water resources of the Basin. As we always say, you can't manage what you don't measure.
- Much of DRBC's collected data are inputted into the EPA's Water Quality Database: https://www.epa.gov/waterdata/water-quality-data
- DRBC's monitoring programs (sampling surface water, sediment and fish tissue) help to protect and restore water quality in the Basin by providing a mechanism to evaluate how water quality criteria are being met and allow for data to be assessed. Data collected serve as the foundation for the Delaware River & Bay Water Quality Assessment Reports.
- DRBC also collects data on how water is used by various sectors (e.g., public water supply, industry, power generation) in order to evaluate water use and project trends in the Basin.
DRBC data sets can be viewed and downloaded via the National Water Quality Portal, which allows users to pre-package database queries into URL’s for immediate download of project specific data. Below are links to monitoring location and analytical results for selected DRBC monitoring projects. Download of the data file will start immediately upon clicking the link.
Project Description |
Year |
DRBC Contact |
Location Data Download |
Analytical Results Data Download |
Special Protection Waters: Lower Delaware EWQ |
2000-2004 |
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Delaware Estuary Water Quality Monitoring Program (Boat Run) |
2000-2021 |
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Lehigh Watershed Nutrient Monitoring in Support of QUAL2K Model |
2015 |
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Brodhead Watershed Nutrient Monitoring in Support of QUAL2K Model |
2015 |
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Special Protection Waters Monitoring (Lower Delaware) |
2015-2017 (2023 to come) |
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Special Protection Waters Monitoring (Upper and Middle Delaware) |
2015-2017 (2023 to come) |
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Non-tidal Delaware River: Chloride Monitoring |
May 2021-April 2023 |
DRBC utilizes R scripts as a way to view, analyze, and animate water quality and flow data, in addition to groundwater data for the Southeast Pennsylvania Groundwater Protected Area and New Jersey Critical Area 2.
Data analysis and graphical display using R is becoming a major innovation in water quality studies, especially for large data sets. DRBC is at the forefront of utilizing and sharing results generated by this data tool.
- Learn More: Using Data for Water Resource Management at the Delaware River Basin Commission (pdf)
- DRBC also serves as host of the R-Project list-serv for the National Water Quality Monitoring Council
Water Quality Data
- View graphs of dissolved oxygen levels, temperature, specific conductance, total dissolved solids, sodium and chlorides and frazil ice; these plots can be viewed at http://drbc.net/Sky/waterq.htm.
- Temperature data for the upper Delaware River Basin can be viewed at https://www.drbc.net/Sky/uptemp.htm.
Flow & Salt Front Data
- View graphs of water yields for basin subwatersheds, discharge data for the mainstem Delaware and Schuylkill rivers and surface water elevation in the tidal Delaware River; these plots can be viewed at http://drbc.net/Sky/flows.htm.
- View DRBC's Dashboard for Hydrologic Data (reservoir storage, streamflow, salt front location; updates once daily): https://hydrosnap.drbc.net
- View DRBC's Salt Front Data Viewer, which allows the user to explore Delaware Estuary salt front data going back to 1964: https://drbc.net/Sky/hydro/saltfront.html
Groundwater Data
- Current levels in certain monitoring wells in the Southeast Pennsylvania Groundwater Protected Area can be viewed at https://drbc.net/Sky/sepagwpa.htm.
- Current levels in certain monitoring wells in New Jersey Critical Area 2 can be viewed at https://drbc.net/Sky/nj2.htm.
Water Use & Projection Report (2021)
In September 2021, DRBC published a report titled Water Withdrawal and Consumptive Use Estimates for the Delaware River Basin (1990-2017) with Projections through 2060. The report analyzes 30 years of historic withdrawal data and projects withdrawal demands to the year 2060.
- Data can be downloaded or viewed online through an application developed by DRBC staff.
Boat Run Data Explorer
- DRBC staff developed the Delaware Estuary Water Quality Monitoring Program (Boat Run) Data Explorer interactive application that allows the user to explore Delaware Estuary water quality data collected since 1999.
SPW Data Explorer
- DRBC staff developed the DRBC SPW Monitoring Program Data Explorer interactive application that allows the user to explore SPW water quality data collected since 2000.
ArcGIS Map Gallery
Maps
GIS Data
SPW Atlas
Projecting Extreme Precipitation in the Delaware River Basin
Delaware River Basin
- Delaware River Watershed Initiative Water Quality Mapper: A Product of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University
- Delaware Valley Early Warning System: a communication system that provides warning to water suppliers and industrial intake operators in the Delaware and Schuylkill River Watersheds
- Philadelphia Water Department CSOcast: Philadelphia's Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO) Public Notification System
- Philly Rivercast: a daily forecast of Schuylkill River water quality in Philadelphia
- WikiWatershed: Delaware River Watershed Initiative
U.S. EPA
- U.S. EPA's Non-Point Source Pollution Web Site
- U.S. EPA's Storage and Retrieval (STORET) Database: Water Quality Data
- U.S. EPA's Water Resources Web Site
USGS
- USGS Delaware River Dashboard
- USGS Next Generation Water Observing System: Delaware River Basin
- USGS Gage Information
- USGS National Water Information System (NWIS) Database: Water Data for the Nation
- USGS WaterAlert: a service that sends e-mail or text messages when certain USGS-measured parameters exceed thresholds.
- USGS National Water Quality Assessment Program (USGS NAWQA): This program, initiated in 1991 to describe the status and trends in the quality of the nation's ground and surface waters, is unique in that it integrates surface and groundwater-quality monitoring with the study of aquatic ecosystems. The USGS began the Delaware River Basin NAWQA study in 1997 (link to report).
Other
Presentations
- Using Data for Water Resource Management at the DRBC (pdf)
- DRBC Monitoring Programs (pdf)
- Applications for Near Real-Time and Interactive Data Assessment in the Delaware River Basin (pdf)
- Enhancing Data Interpretation in the Delaware River Basin with R (pdf)
- Temporally Dynamic Representations of Continuous Monitor Data through Animated Graphing (pdf)
Copyright © Delaware River Basin Commission,
P.O. Box 7360, West Trenton, NJ 08628-0360
Phone (609)883-9500; Fax (609)883-9522
Thanks to NJ for hosting the DRBC website