GFM products are fully accessible via GIS environment or web browser. It is possible to access the WMS layers using any WMS client viewer, such as Quantum GIS (QGIS) or ESRI ArcMap. GFM offers WMS that supports temporal requests (WMS-T).
GFM relies on GeoServer as technology in order to provide a WMS-T service for the global flood monitoring product. GeoServer allows users to display the needed spatial information making maps available in a variety of output formats. OpenLayers, a free mapping library, is integrated into GeoServer, making map generation quick and easy. GeoServer is built on GeoTools, an open source Java GIS toolkit [2].
The GFM WMS-T is freely accessible at the indicated URL: https://geoserver.gfm.eodc.eu/geoserver/gfm/wms
The service is designed to display one single global layer per day.
Steps:
4. At this point in the browser panel under the WMS/WMTS icon you should see the title for the WMS connection that you have entered. Click on the arrow near the WMS connection to open it. You should see the GFM WMS layers as follow:
5. To view the layers simply drag and drop the layer icon into the Layers panel underneath the Browser panel, the layer will be displayed in the Map Panel
6. In the Layer panel you can see the legend associated to each layer underneath the name of the layer
7. Some of the layers are queryable, to retrieve the info for the layer:
Further documentation on how to use QGIS can be found in on-line this training manual.
Specific instructions on the use of GFM data in QGIS are also provided in the Quick Start Guide
Using ESRI ArcGIS/ArcMap, you can load a WMS-T directly into your existing map. A quick-start guide (using ArcMap v.10.0.2) is provided below:
6. It is possible to request different forecast time using the time slider button. This will open a time slider window, moving the cursor will call different forecast times for the selected layer:
Further documentation on how to use WMS with ESRI ArcGIS/ArcMap can be found on-line