The National Recommended Water Quality Criteria is a compilation of national recommended water quality criteria for the protection of aquatic life and human health in surface water for approximately 150 pollutants. These criteria provide guidance for states and tribes to use in adopting water quality standards.

This is a coverage of the boundaries and codes used for the U.S. Geological Survey's National Water-Quality Assessment (NAWQA) Program Study-Unit investigations in the conterminous United States, excluding the High Plains Regional Ground-Water Study. The data set represents the areas studied during the first decade of the NAWQA Program, from 1991-2001 ("cycle 1").

This is a coverage of the boundaries and codes used for the U.S. Geological Survey's National Water-Quality Assessment (NAWQA) Program Study-Unit investigations in the conterminous United States, excluding the High Plains Regional Ground-Water Study. The data set represents the areas studied during the first decade of the NAWQA Program, from 1991-2001 ("cycle 1").

This is a coverage of the boundaries and codes used for the U.S. Geological Survey's National Water-Quality Assessment (NAWQA) Program Study-Unit investigations in the conterminous United States, excluding the High Plains Regional Ground-Water Study. The data set represents the areas to be studied during the second cycle of the NAWQA Program, from 2001-2012 ("cycle 2").

EPA has compiled state, territorial, and authorized tribal water quality standards that EPA has approved or are otherwise in effect for Clean Water Act purposes. This compilation is continuously updated as EPA approves new or revised WQS.Please note the water quality standards may contain additional provisions outside the scope of the Clean Water Act, its implementing federal regulations, or EPA's authority. In some cases, these additional provisions have been included as supplementary information. EPA is posting the water quality standards as a convenience to users and has made a reasonable effort to assure their accuracy. Additionally, EPA has made a reasonable effort to identify parts of the standards that are approved, disapproved, or are otherwise not in effect for Clean Water Act purposes.

The National Lakes Assessment (NLA) is a first-ever statistically-valid survey of the biological condition of lakes and reservoirs throughout the U.S. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) worked with states and tribes to conduct the assessment in 2007. Data for each parameter sampled in the National Lakes Assessment (NLA) are available for downloading in a series of files as comma separated values (*.csv). Each *.csv data file has a companion text file (*.txt) that lists a dataset label and individual descriptions for each variable. Users should view the *.txt files first to help guide their understanding and use of the data.