California Surface Water Quality Monitoring Data

SWAMP Data Dashboard provides five curated resources from the Surface Water Ambient Monitoring Program for California's surface waters. The dataset includes station information, water quality results, toxicity summaries, habitat scores, and tissue contaminant statistics. Data is sourced from the California Environmental Data Exchange Network and is provisional.

Use Cases

• Analyze chemical and physical parameter trends from Water Quality Results to identify pollution sources.
• Assess ecological health by correlating California Stream Condition Index (CSCI) scores from Habitat Results with contaminant levels.
• Study long-term bioaccumulation using annual summary statistics of contaminant concentrations in Tissue Summary Results.
• Map monitoring site locations and attributes from SWAMP Stations for spatial analysis of water quality.

Strengths

• Contains five distinct, thematically organized data resources for multi-faceted water quality analysis.
• Data is curated from the central California Environmental Data Exchange Network (CEDEN) repository.
• Includes specialized indices like the California Stream Condition Index (CSCI) and Algal Stream Condition Index (ASCI).

Limitations

• Dataset is provisional and explicitly not intended for regulatory purposes, limiting its authority.
• Overlap with broader CEDEN datasets may cause confusion or redundancy without clear versioning.
• Specific row counts, file sizes, and temporal coverage are not provided, obscuring the dataset's scale.

Provenance

Source

California Environmental Data Exchange Network (CEDEN), curated by the Surface Water Ambient Monitoring Program (SWAMP).

Collection Method

Collected by SWAMP and its partners through field and lab monitoring of California's surface waters.

Freshness

Last updated March 2026.

Geography

Surface waters across the state of California, United States.