GFM Implementing and operating the GFM service requires a set of procedures to ensure the technical and scientific quality of the GFM product’s output layers of flood information, and of the generating service, with the overall aim to deliver the GFM output layers (including Observed Flood Extent, Reference Water Mask, Exclusion Mask, and other supplementary information) with the best possible quality. Quality Assessment (QA) procedures include both systematic automated and planned offline quality checks considering all aspects of the production, from data ingestion to data processing, data delivery, and thematic accuracy of the main GFM product output layers.
The QA mainly focuses on evaluating:
The assessment takes place on a regular basis, i.e., a quarterly reporting period. The results from all QA/QC checks are documented in an Annual Report. The assessment of the thematic accuracy follows a qualitative and quantitative approach. A quantitative assessment will be performed on the full Sentinel-1 timeseries covering the period from 2015 to 2021 with a point-based sampling approach. Besides, a use-case-based evaluation for a selected number of cases will be implemented for the near real-time processing, starting in 2022. With this we aim for an exhaustive comparison of specific flood events for which the flood extent is manually derived within a locally confined area allowing to run a pixel-based comparative analysis.
Technical reports about the quality of the GFM product are available online.
For any further information please contact the User Support.