MDBA Gauge Getter provides a unified and simple interface to collect surface water data from the following state water portals:

The tool is configured to abstract away the details specific to each state water portal and return a consistent structure. By default it will return a daily mean of a flow in ML/day for a given gauge number, but storage level, storage volume, other intervals and aggregations are available.

Example of its use can be seen in Gauge_getter_example.ipynb notebook, contact [email protected] for more details.

• Clone the repo in your local folder: for example, inside ~./users/john.doe git clone https://github.com/MDBAuth/MDBA_Gauge_Getter.git which will create a git tracked project repository inside ~./users/john.doe/mdba_gauge_getter.
• Create a virtual environment: for example, conda create --name gauge_getter_env.
• Activate the virtual environment: conda activate gauge_getter_env.
• Go inside the project folder i.e., cd ~./users/john.doe/mdba_gauge_getter.
• Check git status and git branch.
• Install dependencies with pip3 install -r requirements.txt
• (Optionally) install dev dependencies with pip3 install -r requirements-dev.txt
• Run python3 setup.py install to install the module

• Install via pip with the command: pip install mdba-gauge-getter
• After installation, import the package with the command: import mdba_gauge_getter.gauge_getter as gg
• Import datetime for converting your intervals into python datetime object: import datetime as dt

There are several options to call Gauge Getter which are as follows:

• gauge_numbers denotes the gauge(s) for which the parameters such as flow, lake/storage level, storage volume etc. will be obtained. It takes a list of strings (gauge numbers) as input.
• start_time_user denotes the start time of the userdefined interval. It takes a datetime python object as input.
• end_time_user denotes the end time of the userdefined interval. It takes a datetime python object as input.
• data_source denotes which state the gauge(s) belong(s) to which API to fetch the data from. Please note that SA does not currently have an API to obtain the data from; hence, the data is fetched from the BOM API. Different data_source options are:
  • i.e., 'NSW', 'VIC', 'QLD', 'SA'/'BOM'
  • 'BOM'
• var denotes the parameter to retreieve such as flow, lake/storage level, storage volume etc. It takes a string indicating the parameter type as input. Different string notation for different var options are:
  • 'F' for flow (default).
  • 'L' for water level used for flow calculation.
  • 'LL'/'SL' for lake/storage level.
  • 'SV' for storage volume. Please note that this is exclusively a BOM API parameter. Please specify the data source as 'BOM' if you would like to retrieve this parameter.
• interval indicates the duration the parameter data are collected for aggregation. Different interval options are:
  • 'day'. Alternate options for BOM API call is: 'd'.
  • 'hour'. Alternate options for BOM API call is: 'h'.
  • 'month'. Alternate options for BOM API call is: 'm'.
  • 'year'. Alternate options for BOM API call is: 'y'.
• data_type inidcates the aggregation method. Different data_type options are:
  • 'mean' (default). Alternate options for BOM API call are: 'avg', 'average', 'av' and 'a'.
  • 'min'. Alternate options for BOM API call is: 'minimum'. Only available when obtaining daily interval data.
  • 'max'. Alternate options for BOM API call is: 'maximum'. Only available when obtaining daily interval data.

For issues relating to the script, a tutorial, or feedback please contact Ben Bradshaw ([email protected]) or Ahsanul Habib ([email protected]).

For data issues please see the corresponding state water portals.