A quick intro to EA flood-monitoring API

1. #Floodhack16 11-12 March 2016
Environment Agency Flood
Monitoring API
Stuart Williams
skw@epimorphics.com
@skwlilac

2. #Floodhack16 11-12 March 2016
What is it?
• Launched March 2015
• URI and JSON based API giving access to:
– Flood Area reference data
– Flood Alerts and Warnings (15 min updates)
– 3 day Flood Risk forecast
– Monitoring Station reference data
– Measure reference data
– Readings (15 min update)
• CSV archive of readings data
– Currently back to 2014-01-15
• Open Govt License v3 – freely reusable data with due attribution
• Not to be used for Safety Critical Applications
– Fed from same source but less demanding SLA

3. #Floodhack16 11-12 March 2016
So what does that look like?
{base}=http://environment.data.gov.uk/flood-monitoring/
• Flood Areas
– {base}/id/floodAreas?_limit=10
– {base}/id/floodAreas/053FWFPUWI06
– {base}/id/floodAreas?search=Leeds
• Area Geometries
– {base}/id/floodAreas/053FWFPUWI06/polygon
• Flood Warnings and Alerts
– {base}/id/floods
– {base}/id/floods?county=Yorkshire
• 3 Day Forecasts
– {base}/id/3dayforecast
– {base}/id/3dayforecast/image/1

4. #Floodhack16 11-12 March 2016
So what does that look like?
{base}=http://environment.data.gov.uk/flood-monitoring/
• Stations
– {base}/id/stations/1029TH
– {base}/id/stations?town=Leeds
• Measures
– {base}/id/measures/1029TH-level-downstage-i-15_min-mASD
(don’t panic – station data list measures at station)
– {base}/id/measures?parameter=level&qualifier=Downstream Stage&_limit=50
– {base}/id/measures?stationReference=1029TH&_limit=100
• Readings
– {base}/data/readings?latest ….see note on crawling
– {base}/data/readings
– {base}/id/measures/{id}/readings
– {base}/id/stations/{id}/readings
– Various filters inc date/date range

5. #Floodhack16 11-12 March 2016
Result Formats
• Just follow the links for
.json (by default)
• But also:
– .csv
– .ttl and .rdf (RDF)
– .html (stations,
measures)

6. #Floodhack16 11-12 March 2016
Reading Archives
http://environment.data.gov.uk/flood-monitoring/archive
4 weeks of queryable
readings in linked-data store
Daily .csv archives currently
since 15th Jan 2015

7. #Floodhack16 11-12 March 2016
Wrap-up
• API Reference:
– http://environment.data.gov.uk/flood-monitoring/doc/reference
• Here to help over the weekend
• Happy to receive feedback:
• skw@epimorphics.com
• data.info@environment-agency.gov.uk (goes to Environment Agency, not me)
• Acknowledgements
– This is all the work of my colleague, Dave Reynolds.