XML data service

Our mission is to organize paddling information. So, as part of this mission, we provide many facilities to access gauge data and integrate with other web services. The easiest way to do that right now, is providing data in XML format. All of the data is free of charge and in the public domain. If you do use our data, we encourage you to provide links to our website.

Accessing this data requries an advanced level of computer proficiency. So this page is most appropriate for developers familiar with scripting languages and web protocols. We hope that people will find ways to make this data even more widely available by providing tools to make the data available to spreadsheet programs or other tools, but we provide no access to these at this time.

Types of data

We provide the most recent entries from our database in XML format. Currently you can access:

As we add other types of gauges, we will provide access to these as well. I the future we will give some tools to integrate gauges with your own web pages. As well as: It's important for you to know that all visual gauge data is stored even though it is just not yet publicly accessible (part of the reason for this is a lack of gauge entries).

Opening XML documents

ggml

Basics

Below you'll see detailed description of the ggml ("General Gauge Markup Language") XML schema. Accessing ggml documents is really easy, in fact all you need is a browser to download the XML document. As a first example, let's see how to access an XML document for the latest entry to the Wilson's creek visual gauge. Simply go to the url

http://www.wilsonvisuals.com/services/gaugeXML.php?visid=1.

If you have a recent version of explorer or firefox you should see something like: 

<ggml>

<gauge visid="1">
    <name>Wilson's Creek</name>
    <type>Visual</type>
 <reading>
        <time>2005-10-21T08:32</time>

        <stage unit="ft">0.25</stage>
        <imp>low</imp>
    </reading>
</gauge>
</ggml>
There are two parts of this request there is the document url:

http://www.wilsonvisuals.com/services/gaugeXML.php

then a question mark and some options, in this case:

?visid=1

Which specifies that we are trying to retrieve data associated with the Visual Gauge with id#1. You can also download USGS data in XML format by inserting a valid USGS site number (page is large and may hang your browser) by adding the ?usgsid tag. For example:

http://www.wilsonvisuals.com/services/gaugeXML.php?usgsid=02096960.

gives something like: 
<ggml>
<gauge usgs="02096960">
    <name>Haw  @ Bynum NC</name>
    <type>USGS</type>

    <reading>
        <time>2005-10-16T17:15</time>
        <stage unit="ft">2.7</stage>
        <flow unit="cfs">81</flow>

    </reading>
</gauge>
</ggml>

Quiet mode

The default data format can be a little verbose, so we have a quite mode that strips all of the attributes and many of the tags

http://www.wilsonvisuals.com/services/gaugeXML.php?usgsid=02096960&quiet. 

<gauge>
    <reading>
        <time>2005-10-16T17:15</time>
        <stage>2.7</stage>

        <flow>81</flow>
    </reading>
</gauge>
this format removes all description of the data, so you better be sure of what you're getting!

Data Freshness

We refresh the data frequently, generally data has been updated from the USGS within minutes of a request. However, we guarantee neither the timeliness nor accuracy of any data on this site.

Data Format

ggml

The following is an example of the current structure of the generalized gauge markup language: 
<ggml>
<gauge>
    <name>Haw at Haw River</name>

    <type>USGS-CFS</type>  <!-- USGS, Visual, etc., -->
    <latitude>-32.3</latitude>
    <longitude>12.4</longitude>

    <reading>
        <time>2005-12-02T3:00</time>
        <stage unit="ft">2</stage>
        <flow unit="cfs">200</flow>

        <imp>xlow</imp>  <!--impression.  For us:low,low,good,high, xhigh -->
    </reading>
    <reading>… </reading>
</gauge>

<gauge>...</gauge>
</ggml>
So the format supports the ability to contain multiple gauges and multiple readings for each gauge.

Converting XML data to other Formats

Currently, we offer no tools for integrating this data into anything. Let me know if you have good ideas, and I might add them here.
Support american whitewater