Two new versions of the Water Quality Exchange (WQX) data flow are now available for review, but not yet in production. U.S. EPA’s Office of Water anticipates that final versions will be available in March 2020. States, tribes, and other WQX users should review these new versions in preparation for production release on March 31, 2020.
The new versions include a minor version upgrade to Version 2.2 and also a major version upgrade to Version 3.0. EPA will continue to support existing versions of the WQX data flow. You can visit the Exchange Network website at https://www.exchangenetwork.net/data-exchange/wqx/ to download and review resources for these two new versions, including XML schemas and updated Flow Configuration Documents and Data Exchange Templates.
WQX Version 2.2 is 100% backwards compatible with v2.1 and provides expanded data element lengths for various key description text type elements. See the schema change log v2.2 (final) and Data Exchange Template v2.2 (final) for more details.
Version 3.0 adopts new elements, some of which are not backwards compatible with version 2.1. See the schema change log v3.0 (final) and Data Exchange Template v3.0 (final) for more details. Version 3.0 also contains changes that will improve quality assurance through best practices and business rules. Good QA/QC ensures that your data can be reused by another user for analysis and helps safeguard against misuse. New version 3.0 supported QA/QC business rules are outlined in both the WQX 3.0 Flow Configuration Document and guidance documents at the WQX website (https://www.epa.gov/waterdata/water-quality-data-wqx).
The Water Quality Exchange (WQX) data flow allows Exchange Network Partners to share ambient water quality data with EPA and with the Water Quality Portal (https://www.waterqualitydata.us/). The Water Quality Portal is the nation’s largest source for water quality monitoring data and contains over 340 million water quality data records data from 400 federal, state, tribal and other partners.
Contact:
Kevin Christian
U.S. EPA Office of Water