Modeled flow percentile
12pct
Adds to Severity → signal 62
Where today's modeled flow sits against this reach's own record for this week — low or high both raise it.
Driftwise Solutions · Waterway Management
Your waterway, managed end to end.
Corridors, closures, hazards, and crews in one place — with a public map that updates the moment staff approves, and a clear read on every reach in the corridor.
Request a demoAlso running: Habitat & Invasives · Fisheries
Waterway Management
Publish conditions the public can trust.
When a tree comes down or the river spikes, paddlers find out from your map before they put in. One report's chain of custody, below — strainer to published closure, 07:42 → 08:05.
- On fileThe corridor
The corridor is the record.
The trail is defined once, properly — segments, access points, portages, and amenities, drawn snap-to-river along USGS NHD flowlines. Every attribute change is versioned, so when a closure lands there is no argument about where the river actually runs.
- 07:42Reported
A strainer comes in structured.
A paddler reports a downed tree across the main channel. It does not land in an inbox — it lands in the model: a type, an urgency, a photo, and a location snapped to the reach it affects. Public hazard reports flow into the same moderated review queue.
The submit wizard — asset, type, urgency, details, submit. - 07:58Reviewed
Nothing reaches the public unreviewed.
The report waits in a moderated queue, current values beside the proposed change. Conflict detection flags anything that contradicts what is already published; a reviewer publishes it or rejects it to draft, and the audit log records who decided what, and when.
Submit-to-publish: each change waits in review before it reaches the public map. - 08:05Published
Live on the map paddlers check first.
The moment staff approves, the public map updates — branded as yours, white-label down to the basemap, at a shareable URL you can put on a website, a newsletter, or a sign. Twenty-three minutes after the report, the closure is where paddlers plan.
- 08:06Everywhere
One record, every surface.
The same published record serves every place a trip gets planned: a Live Conditions widget for your site refreshed every five minutes, an embeddable map that is one script tag with API keys locked to your domains, and printable QR signage at the put-in that opens the map in the app. Visitor analytics show where next season's programming should go.
Representative data
Intelligence · Risk engines
Two engines, one clear state for every reach.
A conclusion is only worth acting on if you can take it apart. Driftwise watches every reach against live and modeled federal data — then tells you which edge was crossed, what the reading was, and where it came from.
See a corridor reportThe engines
One feed. Two questions of the same water.
The engines are siblings, not a stack — none reads another's conclusion. Pick one to see the inputs it watches.
Select an engine to see what it readsWhat it reads
Every input, read and sourced.
Discharge read as a percentile against this reach's own record for this week of the year — two-tailed, so too little water and too much are both flagged. The National Water Model covers every reach, gauged or not.
Live corridor conditions
Current flow175CFS
Flow percentile12%Below normal · 2–34% range
Avg velocity1.1FPS0.1–3.7 range
Velocity hazard0reaches ≥6 fps · 0 ≥4 fps
Flow range1–377CFSmin to max across reaches
Total length132.5km59 reaches
1DLow flowDrops low Thu 4 PM (~10th pct)
2DLow flowDrops low Thu 4 PM (~10th pct)
5DLow flowDrops low Thu 4 PM (~10th pct)
Flow & hydrology4
Gauge flow percentile
26pct
Adds to Severity → signal 20
The same read from a live USGS gauge, which takes precedence where one reports.
Flow-extreme persistence (14-day)
0.98fraction
Adds to Severity → signal 30
How entrenched the extreme is — the share of the last 14 days spent outside the normal band.
Rising-flow forecast
1.2×
Returned data · no risk signal for this reach
Forecast peak over baseline flow — a forward-looking flood-trend signal.
Thermal & climate2
Drought level
D1
Adds to Urgency → signal 40
US Drought Monitor severity over the reach — amplifies low-flow urgency.
Snowpack
—%
Returned data · no risk signal for this reach
Snow-water equivalent vs normal, where snowmelt drives the hydrograph.
Flood & dam hazards1
Flood-forecast category
0
Returned data · no risk signal for this reach
NOAA river-forecast flood category on the reach's forecast gauges.
The reach's measured water quality against the thresholds aquatic life responds to, plus the regulatory and landscape context around it — impairment, floodplain, protected land, and upstream pressure.
Water quality3
Stream temperature
18.4°C
Adds to Severity → signal 34
Live gauge temperature against the thresholds aquatic life responds to.
Dissolved oxygen
8.1mg/L
Adds to Severity → signal 12
Live gauge oxygen — low readings stress fish first.
Impaired waters
12%
Adds to Severity → signal 30
Share of the subwatershed on the EPA 303(d) impaired list.
Watershed & land4
Protected GAP status
2
Adds to Sensitivity → signal 60
Protected land — GAP status 2 is strict biodiversity protection over the surrounding area.
Protected public access
2
Adds to Exposure → signal 50
Open public / protected land along the corridor — recreational exposure.
Watershed dam density
0.01dams/km²
Adds to Sensitivity → signal 7
Cumulative flow alteration across the upstream watershed, not the danger of any one dam.
Watershed impervious cover
1.5%
Adds to Sensitivity → signal 3
Share of the upstream watershed under pavement — higher means flashier, dirtier runoff.
Flood & dam hazards2
FEMA flood zone
SFHA
Adds to Exposure → signal 70
The regulatory 100-year floodplain — built environment at risk.
Dam hazard class
High
Adds to Exposure → signal 80
Downstream consequence if a nearby dam fails (USACE NID).
The state
Readings become one state, and a next step.
Each input is watched against its own healthy range. When a reading leaves that range it trips an edge, and the reach takes the state of the worst edge that tripped — never an average, so a lethal reading can never be diluted by a dozen benign ones. Every reach lands here, and arrives with the readings that put it there:
An edge was crossed- CriticalA critical edge is crossed. Close the reach and notify — approval required.
- WarningA warning edge is crossed. Issue an advisory; schedule an inspection.
- WatchAn informational edge is crossed. Monitor closely; re-check before the season or event.
- All clearNothing we could assess crossed an edge. Not a clean bill of health — routine monitoring.
- Partial dataWe looked, and could not see enough to conclude. Survey, or connect the missing source.
- Not evaluatedNo run has looked at this reach yet — not an all-clear. Run the engine.
Stale is not failed
A reading past its freshness window still resolves — it is marked and weighed down through confidence, so age lowers certainty instead of vanishing.
Measured and modeled are labelled
Every card carries its provenance. You can see whether a number was read off a gauge or produced by a model.
Also free
The conditions data, free to look at.
Streamflow, flood forecasts, drought and wildfire smoke all shape whether a corridor is runnable. Each is published as a free public map — no login, no paywall.
Any point · Six datasets · United States
Watershed Explorer
Click any point in the country and read what six federal datasets say about it — flow, drought, fire, flood forecast, satellite cyanobacteria screening and Clean Water Act impairment — each one labelled with what it is actually a fact about.
Wildfire · Smoke · United States
Wildfire & Smoke Map
Official NIFC fire perimeters and incident points under NOAA’s HRRR-Smoke near-surface forecast, filterable by size, state, and containment.
Streamflow · Rivers · United States
Streamflow Map
Every reporting USGS stream gauge in the country, coloured by how today’s flow ranks against that gauge’s own record for this calendar day.
Drought · United States
U.S. Drought Map
The U.S. Drought Monitor — the country’s official weekly drought assessment — drawn across five severity categories from D0 to D4.
Flood · Rivers · United States
Flood Outlook Map
NOAA’s river forecast centres call the next few days at every forecast gauge in the country, on the National Weather Service’s own flood categories — action, minor, moderate and major.
Water quality · 303(d) · United States
Impaired Waters Map
Every subwatershed in the country against the states’ own Clean Water Act assessments — what is impaired, what is still on the 303(d) list, what is causing it, and how much of the country nobody has assessed at all.
Cyanobacteria · Lakes · United States
Cyanobacteria Bloom Map
NASA and EPA’s satellites read a pigment index over roughly 2,300 U.S. lakes large enough to resolve at 300 m. A pre-screening indicator, not a health assessment, and never a substitute for your state’s advisory.
ESA · Protected land · United States
Critical Habitat & Protected Waters Map
Every river and stream the federal government has designated as ESA critical habitat, the listed species each unit is designated for, and who manages the protected land around it.
SEE IT IN ACTION
One platform for three monitoring programs.
Run a mark-recapture program, coordinate a multi-partner invasive species response, or manage the waterway program for a state park or conservation nonprofit. Bring your own program to the demo and we'll run Driftwise on it, live.
Request a demoA free 30-minute working session with your data on screen.
Get started
Scope a pilot for your program.
Tell us about your program — a watershed, an infestation, a trail system. We'll walk through how a field record becomes the report your agency and funders sign off on.
The call
A working call, not a pitch
We spend the time on your actual program — the data you have now and the report you owe.
Onboarding
Guided onboarding
We import your existing records and configure the setup alongside your team. Role-based in-product tours carry the rest of the crew after the call.
Scope
Start with one season
Run a single pilot first and expand when it earns the next watershed.
Reach us
Send us your corridor, watershed, or program and we'll build the working demo around your records. We reply within one business day.
Click to reveal — we obscure the address to cut spam.