Australian river-levels API live gauges, attributed.
Live river heights and gauge rainfall near any Australian location, from the Bureau of Meteorology's Water Data Online — restricted to CC-BY-licensed stations, with each gauge's data owner and exact attribution string in the response. Observations, not warnings.
The call
Keyless. Every response carries per-station provenance — owner, licence, real observation time — and is Ed25519-signed, so it's verifiable against our published key.
# keyless — live river gauges near Brisbane (any AU preset or 'lat,lon')
curl -X POST https://dynamicfeed.ai/v1/batch -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"calls":[{"tool":"au_water","args":{"location":"brisbane","kind":"river"}}]}'
# MCP (keyless) — point any client at https://dynamicfeed.ai/mcp, then call:
au_water(location="brisbane", kind="both")Sample response
{ "location": "Brisbane", "kind": "river",
"disclaimer": "Observational gauge data only; NOT a flood warning. Official flood warnings ... Bureau of Meteorology",
"river_levels": { "stations_ccby_in_area": 436, "stations": [
{ "name": "Brisbane R at Jindalee", "level_m": 0.397, "distance_km": 12.1,
"trend_3h": { "direction": "falling", "change_m": -0.634 },
"observed_at": "2026-06-11T09:40:45+10:00", "age_hours": 35.5,
"attribution": "© Queensland Bulk Water Supply Authority (Seqwater) via Bureau of Meteorology Water Data Online, CC BY 3.0 AU" } ] },
"provenance": { "licence": "CC BY 3.0 AU — Table-1 data owners only", "source": "BoM Water Data Online (KiWIS API)" } }Why live data
Software that watches Australian rivers — farm systems, councils, logistics, insurers — usually ends up scraping pages it isn't licensed to redistribute. This serves only stations whose data owners the Bureau's licensing statement lists under Creative Commons, carries each station's exact attribution string, and timestamps every reading honestly (Water Data Online ingestion can lag hours behind the gauge — the per-station age says so). No thresholds or flood classifications are invented: gauge height is an observation, not a severity claim.
Use it for
- Irrigation and river-pump decisions on farms
- Council and utility dashboards with provable sourcing
- Logistics awareness for low-lying crossings and causeways
- Insurers and parametric covers — pair a reading with /v1/notarize for signed evidence
FAQ
Is this a flood warning service?
No — and the response says so in a top-level disclaimer. It serves gauge observations and trends; official flood warnings and watches are issued by the Bureau of Meteorology.
Why are some gauges missing?
Only stations whose data owner is on Table 1 (Creative Commons) of the BoM rain and river licensing statement are served. Gauges under other terms are excluded, and the exclusion counts are reported — we don't serve what isn't licence-cleared.
How fresh are the readings?
Each station carries its real observation timestamp and age. Water Data Online ingestion lags hours to ~a day behind the physical gauges for many owners — the per-station age_hours is the truth, and the response says when readings run old.
What does it cost?
Keyless to try over MCP and POST /v1/batch. A free REST key adds rate and usage controls; paid plans start at US$19/month — see /#pricing.