Visualising time-series data with

the Australian Hydrological

Geospatial Fabric & the Geofabric

Sample Toolbox

Darren G Smith

#Locate15, Thursday 12th

of March 2015

Presentation outline

• Quick background of Geofabric project.

• What is the Geofabric?

• What is the Sample Toolset?

• What is Water Data Online?

• Case study: Using the Geofabric, sample toolset and Water Data Online to

visualise flow rates across the Murray Darling Basin May 2010 to July 2011.

• Questions.

Background

• Bureau mandated under Water Act 2007 to become the

national water information agency.

• Australian Hydrological Geospatial Fabric (Geofabric)

provides geospatial framework used for Bureau's collection

of Water Information products.

• Key partners: Australia National University, Geoscience

Australia and CSIRO.

• Stakeholders: internal (BoM), government (federal, state,

local), private business/organisations, and general public.

What is the Geofabric

• The Geofabric is a specialised suite of hydrological

geospatial data products.

• It maps out the complex relationships

between important hydrologic features

• The Geofabric provides consistency

at a nation-wide coverage.

• V1 released 2010, V2 - 2011, V2.2 & first

four V3 Drainage Divisions - 2015.

How is it made?

• A set of manually digitised cartographic features are used to

hydrologically enforce a digital elevation model (DEM).

• The resulting hydrologically enforced DEM and multi-

directional flow direction grid are then used to derive a

series of base products including: drainage basins, base

catchments and a fully connected stream network.

• These base products together with the cartographic

features are then processed to derive the features and

attribution contained within the 6 Geofabric products.

Built-in relationships

• The surface network of streams

is split into segments at

junctions.

• Ghost nodes link to time-

series on Water Data Online

• Water bodies link to outlet

nodes (300+ to water

storages website).

• Each segment has a relationship

with 'from' and 'to' nodes and a

catchment area.

Fully connected & flow directed network

• Trace the fully

connected, flow

directed network

• Find related

catchments

• or sub-

catchments

What is the Geofabric

Sample Toolset?

• ArcGIS toolbox of 17 script tools that

supports workflows commonly

perform by hydrologists.

• Designed for use with Geofabric

products, but will work with similarly

structured data.

• Hoped that tools will promote better

understanding & increased adoption

of Geofabric.

• Open (creative commons) and code

(fairly) accessible to occasional scripters.

Common workflow

• Align points of interest

with the Geofabric

network

Location of Point of

Interest

Location on the

Geofabric network

• Create total upstream

catchments or non-

overlapping sub-

catchments from

Geofabric nodes or their

own points of interest

Water Data Online (WDO)

• Released on BoM website end of last year.

• Web mapping interface & time-series

explorer.

• Data available for download (csv & wdtf).

• Geofabric sample toolset v1.6 includes

bulk download & relate tool.

Case study: Visualising flow rates across the

MDB May 2010-July 2011

• Used tools on Geofabric data to create custom sub-

catchments for river gauges across Murray Darling Basin.

• Used toolset WDO bulk download tool to download and

relate flow data for the period May 2010 to July 2011.

• Classified the time-series data with a set of flow rates

calibrated for each stream gauge (Low-Medium-High flow).

• Created a time animation in ArcGIS.

Workflow used #1

• Monitoring Points used to create Candidate Ghost Nodes.

• Create Ghost Nodes tool used to select

most appropriate match.

• Network topology updated to add in the

Ghost Nodes.

• Create sub-catchments tool used to

generate non-overlapping catchments areas.

Workflow used #2

• In divergent flow areas, initial set of sub-

catchments might not be what you're

expecting.

• Preferred flow tool (advanced) can be used

to control network traceability through

divergent nodes.

• Preferred flow automatically initialised using

Geofabric attribution (can be adjusted

manually).

• Information stored allowing for repeatability.

Workflow used #3

• Used Geofabric toolset WDO bulk download

tool to download flow data for the period

May 2010 to July 2011 and automatically

relate the data to the sub-catchments.

• Classified the time-series data to a set of

flow rates calibrated for each stream gauge

(Low-Medium-High flow).

• Created a time animation in ArcGIS and

exported to .avi...

Animation

*Note: this animation is for demonstration purposes only.

Questions?

Thank you…

Darren G Smith

darren.smith@bom.gov.au

Find out more

• Visit the Bureau of Meteorology Geofabric team at booth 49

– Get a demo of the sample toolset

– Further explanation of the Geofabric products

• www.bom.gov.au/water/geofabric