Water Quality 50% open

What data is expected?

Data, measured at the water source, on the quality of water is essential for both the delivery of services and the prevention of diseases. In order to satisfy the minimum requirements for this category, data should be available on level of the following chemicals by water source and be updated at least weekly:

• fecal coliform
• arsenic
• fluoride levels
• nitrates
• TDS (Total dissolved solids)

What data is available

•   Openly licensed? Yes(Here)
•   Is the data available for free? Yes
•   Is the data machine readable? Unsure (n/a)
•   Available in bulk? Unsure
•   Is the data provided on a timely and up to date basis? No
•   Publicly available? No(as Annual Drinking Water Quality Reports published by Environmental Protection Agency)
•   Is data in digital form? No
•   Is the data available online? No (No URL given)
•   Does the data exist? Yes

Details

On openly-licensed: "USGS-authored or produced data and information are considered to be in the U.S. public domain. While the content of most USGS Web pages is in the U.S. public domain, not all information, illustrations, or photographs on our site are. Some non USGS photographs, images, and/or graphics that appear on USGS Web sites are used by the USGS with permission from the copyright holder. These materials are generally marked as being copyrighted. To use these copyrighted materials, you must obtain permission from the copyright holder under the copyright law."

This website also does not seem to show fecal coliform, arsenic levels, nor total dissolved solids.

Some data sets were downloadable (in .txt) but others weren't. Not sure if they were in bulk because I had to use a search engine rather than download a complete data set.

Reviewer comments

In the US two major agencies look at water data. The US Geological Survey has an incredible amount of water quality of data, however, not all of it is for drinking water, a small subset of the groundwater data can be considered drinking water. The EPA is in charge of monitoring drinking water and the local body is in charge of testing water which they are then required to send to the EPA those reports are supposed to be online but rarely are.