The National Water Archive is maintained by the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology at Wallingford (UK) and is one of the Natural Environment Research Council's eight Designated Data Centres. The aim of the Designated Data Centres is to provide a focus for NERC's environmental holdings and provide information and advisory services to a wide range of users.
The National River Flow Archive and National Groundwater Level Archive form the core of the National Water Archive. A broad range of hydrological - and related - data are being assimilated into the coordinated management provided by the NWA. Data holdings range from the catchment scale, eg detailed climatological and hydrological data for a network of experimental catchments, to national (flood event data) and international coverage (world flood archive).
Staff at the NWA maintain close contacts with measuring authorities and keep under review developments in the field of network design, instrumentation and information technology. A continuing dialogue with both data suppliers and an active community of users ensures that the databases and retrieval facilities are reviewed continuously to provide an effective and responsive service across a wide range of applications.
The principal datasets fall into two general categories: time series and spatial; examples of major data holdings appear below.
Access arrangements vary between datasets. For guidance regarding these arrangements contact the National Water Archive.