In ropensci/wateRinfo: Download Time Series Data from Waterinfo.be

knitr::opts_chunk$set(
  collapse = TRUE,
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  fig.path = "man/figures/README-",
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wateRinfo

wateRinfo facilitates access to waterinfo.be, a website managed by the Flanders Environment Agency (VMM) and Flanders Hydraulics Research. The website provides access to real-time water and weather related environmental variables for Flanders (Belgium), such as rainfall, air pressure, discharge, and water level. The package provides functions to search for stations and variables, and download time series.

To get started, see:

• Get started: an introduction to the package's main functionalities.
• Function reference: overview of all functions.
• Articles: tutorials on how to use the package.

Installation

You can install the development version of wateRinfo from GitHub with:

# install.packages("devtools")
devtools::install_github("ropensci/wateRinfo")

# Or rOpenSci R-universe
install.packages("wateRinfo", repos = "https://ropensci.r-universe.dev")

Example

For a number of supported variables (documented by VMM), the stations providing time series data for a given variable can be listed with the command get_stations().

If you want to know the supported variables, ask for the supported variables:

library(wateRinfo)

supported_variables("en")

Listing the available air pressure stations:

get_stations("air_pressure")

Each of the stations in the list for a given variable, are represented by a ts_id. These can be used to download the data of a given period with the command get_timeseries_tsid(), for example Overpelt (ts_id = 78124042):

overpelt_pressure <- get_timeseries_tsid("78124042", 
                                         from = "2017-04-01", 
                                         to = "2017-04-02")
head(overpelt_pressure)

Making a plot of the data with ggplot2:

library(ggplot2)
ggplot(overpelt_pressure, aes(x = Timestamp, y = Value)) + 
    geom_line() + 
    xlab("") + ylab("hPa") + 
    scale_x_datetime(date_labels = "%H:%M\n%Y-%m-%d", date_breaks = "6 hours")

knitr::include_graphics("man/figures/README-plot_pressure-1.png")

Another option is to check the available variables for a given station, with the function get_variables(). Let's consider again Overpelt (ME11_002) and check the first ten available variables at the Overpelt measurement station:

vars_overpelt <- get_variables("ME11_002")
head(vars_overpelt, 10)

Different pre-calculated variables are already available and a ts_id value is available for each of them to download the corresponding data. For example, DagGem (= daily mean values) of RH (= relative humidity), i.e. ts_id = 78382042:

overpelt_rh_daily <- get_timeseries_tsid("78382042", 
                                         from = "2017-04-01", 
                                         to = "2017-04-30")
head(overpelt_rh_daily)

ggplot(overpelt_rh_daily, aes(x = Timestamp, y = Value)) + 
    geom_line() + 
    xlab("") + ylab(" RH (%)") + 
    scale_x_datetime(date_labels = "%b-%d\n%Y", date_breaks = "5 days")

knitr::include_graphics("man/figures/README-plot_rh-1.png")

Unfortunately, not all variables are documented, for which the check for the appropriate variable is not (yet) fully supported by the package.

More detailed tutorials are available in the package vignettes!

Note on restrictions of the downloads

The amount of data downloaded from waterinfo.be is limited via a credit system. You do not need to get a token right away to download data. For limited and irregular downloads, a token will not be required.

When you require more extended data requests, please request a download token from the waterinfo.be site administrators via the e-mail address [e-mail] with a statement of which data and how frequently you would like to download data. You will then receive a client-credit code that can be used to obtain a token that is valid for 24 hours, after which the token can be refreshed with the same client-credit code.

Get token with client-credit code: (limited client-credit code for testing purposes)

client <- paste0("MzJkY2VlY2UtODI2Yy00Yjk4LTljMmQtYjE2OTc4ZjBjYTZhOjRhZGE4",
                 "NzFhLTk1MjgtNGI0ZC1iZmQ1LWI1NzBjZThmNGQyZA==")
my_token <- get_token(client = client)
print(my_token)

Receive information on the validity of the token:

is.expired(my_token)

Check when the token expires:

expires.in(my_token)

Use token when retrieving data:

get_stations(variable_name = "verdamping_monteith", token = my_token)

Other clients

Besides this wateRinfo R client to gather data from waterinfo.be, there is also a Python client available. The pywaterinfo package contains similar functionalities.

The Flanders Hydraulics Research center also distributes clients for R, Python and Matlab upon request to download the data they share on waterinfo.be. For more information, contact them directly via [e-mail].

Acknowledgements

This package is just a small wrapper around waterinfo.be to facilitate researchers and other stakeholders in downloading the data from waterinfo.be. The availability of this data is made possible by de Vlaamse Milieumaatschappij, Waterbouwkundig Laboratorium, Maritieme Dienstverlening & Kust, Waterwegen en Zeekanaal NV en De Scheepvaart NV.

Meta

• We welcome contributions including bug reports.
• License: MIT
• Get citation information for wateRinfo in R doing citation("wateRinfo").
• Please note that this project is released with a Contributor Code of Conduct. By participating in this project you agree to abide by its terms.

ropensci/wateRinfo documentation built on July 12, 2022, 12:11 p.m.