Accessing Flood Categories via dataRetrieval

[fjones2222]

Is it possible to access flood benchmarks/categories from the dataRetrieval package? To be clear, I am referring to section 1 from the link below.

https://waterdata.usgs.gov/blog/5-new-things/

I would have thought that the following code would provide information on the different levels from defining different flood categories for each site.

library(dataRetrieval)
siteINFO <- readNWISsite("50138000")

[ldecicco-USGS]

The data for the next-gen monitoring location pages is coming from: https://waterwatch.usgs.gov/webservices/

The underlying data for that service comes from "AHPS": https://water.weather.gov/precip/

AHPS are currently talking about updating their services here: https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/5b0c7dd5081548d29f04feefddd83104

In the meantime, you could do this:

sites <- c("50138000", "05407000")

get_flood_stage <- function(sites){
  base_url <- "https://waterwatch.usgs.gov/webservices/floodstage?site="  
  df_all <- data.frame()
  for(i in sites){ #the service can only take 1 site at a time
    full_url <- paste0(base_url, i)    
    list_return <- jsonlite::fromJSON(full_url)    
    df_all <- rbind(df_all, list_return[["sites"]])
  }  
  return(df_all)
}

flood_info <- get_flood_stage(sites)

I'm unclear if the waterwatch services are something we can count on long-term, but it currently is the best/easiest way to get flood information from a USGS site ID. Once the AHPS and waterwatch services are updated, we can re-visit if dataRetrieval could hit them directly.

[fjones2222]

@ldecicco-USGS thank you so much for this as well as making a great package! worked like a charm!