California Real-time Water Quality Regression Models
Many USGS stations on this website report not only continuous water-quality data that are directly measured in the stream such as temperature, specific conductance, and turbidity, but also continuous computed data such as total nitrogen and suspended-sediment concentration. The latter are computed using empirically derived site-specific regression models, which are created using established methods. The regression models have undergone a complete peer-review process, and are published and available on the web through this web page and selected interpretive reports.
A complete history of all California regression models is available as a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. It lists current models, as well as historic models that became outdated, or expressed computations in terms of non-continuous variables. Except for this spreadsheet, only the most current (active) models are shown on this website.
Current Regression Models
Current regression models used to compute continuous California water-quality data can be viewed four ways:
- Sorted by publication source.
- As a summary Microsoft Excel spreadsheet.
- When exploring a computed constituent (under View Data), click Model Info to see the model used to computed those data (see figure).
- The original published sources of models; links are available throughout this website, including the next section of this page.
Published Sources for Current California Regression Models
- Rasmussen, P.P., Gray, J.R., Glysson, G.D., and Ziegler, A.Z., 2009, Guidelines and Procedures for Computing Time-Series Suspended-Sediment Concentrations and Loads from In-Stream Turbidity-Sensor and Streamflow Data: U.S. Geological Survey Techniques and Methods book 3, chap. C4, 53 p.
- U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, 2013, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, 2013, Quality of Water Colorado River Basin Progress Report No. 24: U.S. Department of Interior, Bureau of Reclamation, Upper Colorado Region