Hi3 Water

Data Sources

Hi3 Water aggregates water asset data from federal agencies, state databases, and community directories. Here's exactly where our data comes from and how we process it.

USGS National Water Information System (NWIS)

Federal Agency
Visit source

The USGS NWIS is the nation's principal repository of water resources data. We ingest site metadata for springs (site type SP) and wells (site type GW) including location, elevation, aquifer codes, and site status. Over 24,000 sites currently indexed.

Data Types
  • Springs
  • Wells
  • Streamflow gauges
  • Groundwater monitoring sites
Coverage

All 50 US states

Update Frequency

Real-time monitoring, site data updated quarterly

Fields Ingested
  • Site name & ID
  • Latitude / Longitude
  • Elevation
  • Aquifer code
  • Site type
  • State & County

USGS Principal Aquifers Map

Federal Dataset
Visit source

The Principal Aquifers dataset provides polygon boundaries for all major aquifer systems in the United States. We store over 4,600 boundary polygons with rock type classification (sandstone, carbonate, igneous/metamorphic, sand & gravel), enabling the Aquifer Boundaries map overlay.

Data Types
  • Aquifer boundary polygons
  • Rock type classification
  • Geological formation data
Coverage

Continental US, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands

Update Frequency

Static dataset (updated 2023)

Fields Ingested
  • Aquifer name & code
  • Rock type
  • Boundary polygon (MultiPolygon)
  • Centroid coordinates

EPA Safe Drinking Water Information System (SDWIS)

Federal Agency
Visit source

The EPA SDWIS database tracks over 160,000 public water systems nationwide. We ingest system locations, water source classifications (groundwater vs surface water), population served counts, and link to violation records. Coordinates are geocoded from city/state data using the OpenStreetMap Nominatim service.

Data Types
  • Public water systems
  • Water source type
  • Population served
  • Violations
Coverage

All US states and territories

Update Frequency

Quarterly updates

Fields Ingested
  • System name & PWSID
  • Water source type
  • Population served
  • City / State / County
  • Geocoded coordinates

FindASpring.org

Community Directory
Visit source

FindASpring is a community-maintained directory of natural springs. We scrape listings with full robots.txt compliance and a 2-second rate limit between requests. Coordinates are extracted from listing pages using multiple strategies (embedded maps, text parsing, geocoding). All scraped data is validated and deduplicated against existing records.

Data Types
  • Natural springs
  • Community water sources
  • Spring descriptions
Coverage

North America (community-contributed)

Update Frequency

Ongoing community submissions

Fields Ingested
  • Spring name
  • Description
  • Coordinates
  • State / Region
  • Community notes

Ingestion Pipeline

Every data source goes through our 5-step pipeline before appearing on the platform.

1. Fetch

Raw data retrieved from source API or scraped from directory

2. Validate

Coordinates, names, and data fields normalized and checked

3. Deduplicate

Haversine distance + fuzzy name matching to prevent duplicates

4. Score

Water Intelligence Score (WIS) computed across 5 dimensions

5. Store

Asset saved to PostGIS database with full metadata

Data Quality Tiers

Every asset is assigned a data quality tier based on the depth and verification of available data.

Gold

Field verified + lab tested water quality

Silver

Reported data with partial verification

Bronze

User-reported or community-sourced

Unverified

Pending review and verification

Know a data source we should integrate? Have corrections for existing data?

Contact UsSubmit a Listing