Environmental sensors

Air quality, river gauges, tides and earthquakes from open public sensor networks, one schema and nearest-station lookup.

Readings from open environmental networks: air quality (OpenAQ), US river gauges (USGS), tides and water levels (NOAA CO-OPS) and earthquakes (USGS), in one station id scheme, one unit set and one quality flag, with nearest-station search by coordinates and derived flags (AQI category, flood stage, recent quakes within a radius).

Collection degraded, last fetch 2026-11-11T06:19:34Z. RealtimeAPI feed sensordata. Machine copies: OpenAPI, pricing JSON.

Endpoints

Endpoint	What	Cadence	Per request	MCP tool
`GET /sensors/api/v1/stations/near`	Stations of every open network within a radius of a point, nearest first, with network, parameters and distance.	Refreshes every 24 hours.	$0.005	sensors_stations_near
`GET /sensors/api/v1/air/{station_id}`	Latest air quality readings at one monitor (PM2.5, PM10, O3, NO2, SO2, CO) with the US EPA AQI value and category.	Refreshes every 60 minutes.	$0.005	sensors_air
`GET /sensors/api/v1/air/near`	Air quality monitors within a radius of a point with their latest readings and AQI, nearest first.	Refreshes every 60 minutes.	$0.010	sensors_air_near
`GET /sensors/api/v1/water/gauge/{site}`	Latest river gauge height, discharge and water temperature at a USGS site, with the NWS flood stage status.	Refreshes every 15 minutes.	$0.005	sensors_water_gauge
`GET /sensors/api/v1/water/gauge/{site}/history`	Gauge readings for the last 7 days at a USGS site, newest first, with observed and ingested times for point-in-time use.	Refreshes every 15 minutes.	$0.020	sensors_water_history
`GET /sensors/api/v1/tides/{station}`	Latest observed water level at a NOAA tide station (metres above MLLW) with the next predicted high and low.	Refreshes every 6 minutes.	$0.005	sensors_tides
`GET /sensors/api/v1/tides/{station}/predictions`	Predicted high and low tides for a day at a NOAA tide station (metres above MLLW, UTC).	Refreshes every 24 hours.	$0.005	sensors_tide_predictions
`GET /sensors/api/v1/quakes/recent`	Earthquakes in the last N hours from the USGS feed, optionally above a magnitude and within a radius of a point.	Refreshes every 60 seconds.	$0.005	sensors_quakes

First calls

GET /sensors/api/v1/air/near?lat=-33.87&lon=151.21&radius_km=10 (MCP sensors_air_near): air quality monitors and AQI around a point
GET /sensors/api/v1/water/gauge/01646500 (MCP sensors_water_gauge): river level, flow and flood stage at a USGS gauge
GET /sensors/api/v1/quakes/recent?min_mag=4&hours=24 (MCP sensors_quakes): earthquakes above a magnitude in the last day
GET /sensors/api/v1/tides/8518750 (MCP sensors_tides): observed water level and the next high and low tide

Example prompts

"What is the air quality within 10 km of my warehouse right now?"
"Is the Potomac above action stage?"
"When is high tide at The Battery today?"
"Any earthquakes above magnitude 4 near Tokyo in the last 24 hours?"

Sources and licences

Publisher	What	Licence
USGS Water Services	River gauge height, discharge and water temperature, 15-minute instantaneous values	US public domain
NOAA CO-OPS Tides and Currents	Observed water levels every 6 minutes and high/low tide predictions	US public domain
USGS Earthquake Hazards Program	Earthquake events, magnitude, depth and location, updated each minute	US public domain
NOAA National Water Prediction Service	NWS flood categories (action, minor, moderate, major) per gauge	US public domain
OpenAQ	Air quality from government and research reference monitors (PM2.5, PM10, O3, NO2, SO2, CO)	CC BY 4.0

Attribution travels in the source array of every response.

Through RealtimeAPI.ai

The same endpoints are the feed sensordata on RealtimeAPI.ai, with 1,000 free calls a month on one rta_live_ key across every feed. Paths are identical after the feed slug:

curl https://api.realtimeapi.ai/v1/sensordata/api/v1/air/near?lat=-33.87&lon=151.21&radius_km=10 -H "X-API-Key: rta_live_..."

Setup prompt and details.