Question: What should I do when asked for a password?
Answer: Enter the password: JQPUBLIC and press the Log In button.
Question: What should I do to when I get a "Session Expired" message?
Answer: Click on the "refresh" button on the browser menu bar (and/or open up
a new browser session), then re-select your query options.
Question: How do I locate water-quality data for surface-water sites
near my home?
Answer: Select the "Surface Water/Bed Sediment" link under
"Retrieve Data"
Select an output format from the "Choose a Surface
Water Query Output below" drop-down menu, then press "Go"
Select the
desired State and County options
Select the desired lab schedule(s) OR
parameters
Select additional search criteria as needed Select "Apply
Parameters" at the bottom of the page
Question: How do I retrieve data for multiple states, counties, etc?
Answer: Selecting (highlighting) multiple items from a domain list is
a browser-dependant task. On Windows platforms, holding down the
control key and left-mouse-button clicking allows multiple
selections. On some platforms (Sun), simple clicking of items (without
control key) allows multiple selections.
For example, to retrieve data for Alabama and Arizona: in the "Choose
States" domain list, left-click on "Alabama" then ctrl-left-click
"Arizona"---additional states can be selected using the
ctrl-left-click procedure.
Multiple adjacent items can be selected by highlighting one end-member
then "shift-left-clicking" on the other end member.
Question: Why do I get the message, "This worksheet doesn't contain
any data?" although I know of at least one USGS sampling location in
the state and county I selected?
Answer: The NAWQA program doesn't maintain a sampling site located in the
state/county of interest (this answer assumes that all the selected
search criteria are valid---check the "Miscellaneous hints" under
"Help/Data Retrieval tips" for details). To retrieve data for USGS
sites that aren't included in the NAWQA program, check the USGS
"NWISweb" page at:
http://water.usgs.gov/nwis
Question: How do I export data to my local computer?
Answer: To place the results of a query into a file on your computer,
select the "export data" option at the top of the page after the query
has finished tabling the data. Next, select an export format from the
drop-down menu then "hit" the "export data" button (and respond to the
prompts, if any, depending on the data-type that was selected). From
the browser's file menu, select "Save as" and respond to the directory
and filename options.
Note: Large queries (ie >10000 rows and/or > 20 columns) export much easier
to a tab-delimited text file rather than directly to Excel. Export to
text file, then import to Excel being careful to maintain correct
datatypes (ie be sure staid is a text field)
Question: How do I retrieve stream-discharge information?
Answer: To retrieve stream-discharge values associated with water-quality
samples, select "DISCHARGE, INST." from the "Choose Parameter" query
option.
"Daily Values" for stream discharge are available through the "Daily
Discharge" link on the main page under RETRIEVE DATA
Question: What should I do to contact someone regarding additional information
about the NAWQA study unit located in my State?
Answer: Study unit web pages are located at:
http://water.usgs.gov/nawqa/nawqamap.html
For additional information about water resources in your State, check:
http://water.usgs.gov/wrd002.html
Question: Are animal tissue analyses dry
weight or wet weight?
Answer: Animal
tissue analyses for organic compounds use wet weight; animal tissue
analyses for metal compounds use dry weight.