The National Water Information System (NWIS) Web Services Snapshot Add-In (content no longer available) gives ArcGIS users the ability to query NWIS web services and download a “snapshot” of NWIS data from the web services to a geodatabase.
The geodatabase, provided with the Snapshot Add-In installation files, has built-in relationships between sites and measurements taken at each site so users can run powerful queries, import tables and build new relationships with the NWIS data, and edit the data while maintaining the built-in relationships.
After requesting data from NWIS web services and populating the geodatabase, standard ArcGIS functions may then be used to visualize, analyze, and export data to other analysis software. Aside from the software download links, the Snapshot website (content no longer available) contains tutorials that demonstrate how to install and use the NWIS Web Services Snapshot Add-In for ArcGIS.
This tool is a product of the CDI project NWIS Web Services Snapshot for ArcGIS, a multi-year project that was funded in 2010, 2011 and 2012.