The Miami Conservancy District maintains a Hydrologic Monitoring Program to continually evaluate the flood protection system and provide recorded hydrologic data for public use. These networks include a daily Observer Precipitation network, a Stream-Gaging network, and a Real-Time Data network. Additional data and statistics are also recorded during each high-water event in which the dams store water.
The Observer Precipitation network includes 47 daily observers who record precipitation amounts each morning. Several of these stations have been providing data for 80 years or more. These records are available electronically from 1982 to present on our water data portal.
In cooperative partnerships with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the Ohio Emergency Management Agency (OEMA), Miami Conservancy District maintains a network of 22 automated stream gages and 21 additional continuous and non-continuous stream gages in the Great Miami River Watershed. The stream gages provide critical data used for monitoring the performance of the flood protection system, determining the appropriate response by staff during high-water events, forecasting peak river stages on the Great Miami River, bridge construction projects, and a variety of scientific investigations pertaining to local water resources.
Eighteen of the automated stream gages are equipped with tipping bucket rain gages that transmit real time precipitation data. The network utilizes the Automated Local Evaluation in Real Time (ALERT) protocol to transmit river stage, precipitation and battery voltage data. Miami Conservancy District also receives and displays data from an additional 10 precipitation gages that are maintained by OEMA.
All 22 of the automated stream gages are also part of the USGS national real-time stream gaging network, and are equipped for transmitting data by both radio and satellite telemetry. Data for these stations is quality controlled and displayed on the USGS Real-Time Data website.
