Reference · built on requestCommons signalAir, water & environment

Water Data Online

Australian river levels, flows, storages, groundwater, and rainfall from the Bureau of Meteorology through KISTERS KiWIS and OGC SOS 2.0.

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About

Water Data Online is the Bureau of Meteorology's outlet for time series collected under the Water Regulations 2008 from data owners across Australia: water course level and discharge, storage level and volume, groundwater level, rainfall, evaporation, water temperature, electrical conductivity, turbidity, and pH. The Bureau stores the data in its WISKI system and exposes it two ways at bom.gov.au/waterdata/services: an OGC Sensor Observation Service 2.0 endpoint returning WaterML2, with GetCapabilities, GetFeatureOfInterest, GetDataAvailability, and GetObservation, and the KISTERS KiWIS query services with commands such as getStationList, getParameterList, getTimeseriesList, and getTimeseriesValues. The data is not real time: providers send it at most once a day and processing takes about 24 hours.

Through Fibric, an operator follows the stations and storages you name and proposes site actions when a level or volume crosses your mark.

This is a reference listing. It documents what Fibric would read from Water Data Online and what it could propose, based on the publisher's published interfaces. Fibric builds it under a managed deployment when you request it; selecting it here installs nothing.

Inputs

  • Stations by parameter or bounding box through SOS2 GetFeatureOfInterest, or through KiWIS getStationList and getSiteList with metadata
  • Period of record per station, parameter, and time series type through GetDataAvailability
  • Observations through GetObservation with a temporalFilter on om:phenomenonTime, each carrying value, quality code, and interpolation type
  • Time series values through KiWIS getTimeseriesValues by ts_id or ts_path, with from, to, or an ISO period such as P3D
  • Flood warning level and discharge series from the Bureau's flood warning network, alongside the standard series
  • Quality codes A, B, C, E, and F and WISKI release states through getQualityCodes and getTimeseriesReleaseStateList

Proposed actions

Read-only. This feed informs operators; it changes nothing.

Proposed actions are target capabilities. Every action runs propose-first and needs a validated deployment and the appropriate permissions.

What you can build

  • Prepare sites as a river rises

    Water course level at the stations you follow is read daily. When the merged series crosses your mark, the operator proposes the site checklist with the reading, its quality code, and the observation time.

    With Storm Prep

  • Hold freight through a flooded crossing

    Flood warning level series for crossings on a route propose a hold on the affected consignments and a customer note, one proposal per crossing.

    With Weather Hold

  • Prove a water-take permit condition

    Discharge or storage level below the value in a licence condition prompts a proposed permit check, with the observed series attached as the record.

    With Permit Check

Requirements

  • Station numbers, such as 410713, and the parameter names the Bureau uses, such as Water Course Discharge or Storage Volume
  • A time series type (procedure), such as Pat2_C_B_1 for merged provisional and validated data, from the guide's recommended list
  • A WaterML2 or KiWIS reader; KiWIS formats include csv, dajson, wml2, zrxp, and xlsx
  • Tolerance for a day or more of latency, since data arrives at most once daily and takes about 24 hours to process
Authentication
None. Both the SOS2 endpoint and the KiWIS query services at bom.gov.au/waterdata/services answer key-value-pair HTTP GET requests without credentials.

Limits

  • Not real time: providers supply data at most once per day and processing to WISKI generally takes about 24 hours
  • SOS2 exposes all WISKI series, including data that has not passed the quality assurance the Water Data Online website applies
  • Only stations with owner-supplied reference data and WDTF-format submissions flow through; sampling points are not included
  • The SOS2 guide is version 1.0.1 from 2017, and time series identifiers are not a fixed format across parameters

Access and pricing

Reference listing. Public feed access is separate from Fibric integration. If you request this feed, your quote covers the build, usage, and support.

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Questions and answers

Is the data live?
No. The Bureau states the data is not real time: data providers supply it at most once per day, and processing into the WISKI system that the services read generally takes about 24 hours.
Which interface should I use?
Both read the same WISKI store. SOS2 follows the OGC standard and returns WaterML2 through GetFeatureOfInterest, GetDataAvailability, and GetObservation. KiWIS is KISTERS' query service with GET and POST commands such as getStationList and getTimeseriesValues, in formats including csv, dajson, and wml2.
What licence covers the data?
Water Data Online states that unless otherwise noted its material is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Australia Licence. The SOS2 guide itself is Commonwealth of Australia copyright; reproduction requests go to waterdatasupport@bom.gov.au.
Ask about Water Data Online

Ask about the capabilities and requirements in this listing.

For project-specific requirements, contact Fibric.

This Commons signal listing is developed, published, and supported by Fibric. It reads public data published by Bureau of Meteorology, Water Data Online (bom.gov.au/waterdata). Upstream agencies and projects are the property of their respective owners, who are not affiliated with Fibric and do not sponsor or endorse this listing. Trademark policy