The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) National Water Quality Assessment Program (NAWQA) monitors water quality conditions in study units across the nation and stores all collected chemical and physical water quality data in the NAWQA Data Warehouse. The NAWQA Data Export provides an easy way to access data stored in the NAWQA Data Warehouse through form-based workbook queries as well as through standalone web services. (A web service is a computer-to-computer protocol that allows for the direct sharing of information. Applications such as internet portals can use the web services to access data from the NAWQA Data Warehouse without needing an authorized database connection.)

The NAWQA Data Export provides six form-based workbooks (this page) for accessing animal tissue, daily stream discharge, ground water, surface water, and site data from the NAWQA Data Warehouse. Equivalent data retrievals can be performed using web services; each of these web services has different input parameters and pre-defined output formats (or schema). For more information and examples on accessing the various web services, see Technical Documentation and Examples.