Time Dependent Locations

In the case that FEWS is used as a forecasting system the locations don't need to be time dependent in the majority of the cases. The time span of a forecasting system is usually several weeks.

For such a short time span the configuration of the locations can be static and if something changes in one of the forecasting locations this can be changed in the FEWS system without keeping track of how the situation was before the change.

However when FEWS is used for a Water Information System (WIS) it is important that FEWS also has knowledge of how the location configuration was in the past. In a WIS the time span is much larger and can be as large as 10 or 20 years.

To make it possible to reproduce the time series generated in the past it is necessary that FEWS still has knowledge about how the location configuration was in the past.

 

The chapter will describe how it is possible to configure time dependent locations. It is also very important to note that only the functionality which is described in this chapter can be considered time dependent.

 

Configuration of time dependent locations

What exactly is a time dependent location? A time dependent location has a start- and an endtime, attributes, but also the related locations of the location can vary in time.

A set of time dependent locations can be configured in the LocationSets.xml file. Below is an example file.

 

<locationSet id="example">
	<csvFile>
	<file>myLocationFile</file>
	<geoDatum>Rijks Driehoekstelsel</geoDatum>
	<id>%ID%</id>
	<name>%NAME%</name>
	<startDateTime>%START%</startDateTime>
	<endDateTime>%EIND%</endDateTime>
	<x>%X%</x>
	<y>%Y%</y>
	<relation id="relation">
		<relatedLocationId>%REL%</relatedLocationId>
	</relation>
	<attribute id="PARAMETERS">
		<text>%PARAMETERS%</text>
	</attribute>
	<attributeFile>
		<csvFile>attribute.csv</csvFile>
		<id>%ID%</id>
		<timeZoneOffset>+00:00</timeZoneOffset>
		<attribute id="Q">
		<number>%Q%</number>
	</attribute>
	</attributeFile>
	</csvFile>
</locationSet>

 

The tags startDateTime and endDateTime relate to the columns in the file mapLayersFiles/myLocationFile.csv.  This csv file defines which locations are in the locationSet example.

 

Besides defining the locations in a csv file it is also possible to define the locations in a dbf file.

The column ID defines the id of the location. The column NAME defines the name. The tag startDateTime refers to the column START.

The tag endDateTime refers to the column EIND. Together the startDateTime and  endDateTime define for which period this location is valid.

 

The tag relation with id "relation" defines a related location. The value is stored in the column REL. The value should be the location id of the related location. 

But, what if this relation changes over time? How should such a change be configured? This will be explained by an example.

If, for example, the related location of location A changes over time then this should be configured in the following way.

In this example we will assume that location A has a related location B until 1-1-2014.

After this date the related location will change to location C.

To configure this the following csv (or dbf) file should be used:

 

ID

NAME

X

Y

START

EINDE

PARAMETERS

REL

1

A

12345

54321

1-1-2000

1-1-2014

P1

B

1

A

12345

54321

1-1-2014

 

P1

C

2

E

11223

32211

1-1-2000

 

P2

M

3

X

12321

12321

1-1-2003

1-1-2010

P2

F

 

 

First a row should exists in the csv (or dbf) file of this locationset with the value A in the column ID and the column which defines the relation (REL) should have the id

B of location B. The EIND column should indicate that this is valid until 1-1-2014. The START column should indicate the start date of this relation. A second row with the same value A for the ID column should also exist. The START column should indicate that this row is valid from 1-1-2014. The EIND column should indicate the end of this relation or should be left empty if there is no end date known for this relation.

The column REL should have the value C to indicate that the related location is C.

In the case that the related location of a location can vary over time but that a lot of attributes stay constant, it is useful to define the constant attributes in a separate attribute file. In the example above an attribute file (attribute.csv) is configured. This file should be located in the same directory (mapLayersFiles) as the file myLocationFile.csv.

However is some cases the attributes also vary over time but vary independent of the of location they belong to. The location might for example change its relation only once while some attributes are changed every year. If this is the case then one should also place these attributes in a seperate csv (or dbf) file. The way the start- and end time of the attributes are configured is comparable to how the start- and end time of the location itself is configured.

The element csv file contain an element startDateTime and endDateTime which define the columns which contain the start and endtime of a single row of attribute definitions.

 

The configuration of the start time and end time of a location and its attributes must be configured according to the following rules:

 

 

Grid display

The grid display supports the usage of time dependent locations and polygons. The time displayed in the grid display can be varied by using the time slider at the top of the display. In a FEWS system were locations are not time

dependent, the locations and polygons shown will not change when another time is selected. However when locations are time dependent, the locations and polygons which are shown in the display will change when another time is selected.

The polygons of the locations of the time series shown in the display will vary automaticly over time when locations are configured to be time dependent. The map layers can be time dependent. An example configuration within the GridDisplay.xml is shown below.

		<esriShapeLayer id="Peilgebieden">
			<file>peilgebieden_example</file>
			<visible>true</visible>
			<selectByMapItemLocationRelation>
				<relationId>PEILGEBIED</relationId>
				<locationId>%GPGIDENT%</locationId>
			</selectByMapItemLocationRelation>
			<toolTip>%GPGNAAM%</toolTip>
			<timeZoneOffset>+01:00</timeZoneOffset>
			<dateTimePattern>dd-MM-yyyy</dateTimePattern> (optional)
			<startDateTimeAttributeName>STARTDATE</startDateTimeAttributeName>
			<endDateTimeAttributeName>ENDDATE</endDateTimeAttributeName>
		</esriShapeLayer>

When a user double clicks on a spot in a shape in the grid display, the plots dialog will automatically open and the time series of the selected polygon will be shown.

But with the introduction of time dependent locations it is possible that the polygon which overlaps a selected geographical point varies over time.

If this is the case and the user double clicks on a spot where the overlap in time occurs, the time series shown in the plots display will also vary over time, so multiple time series will be visible for the total period.”

The MapToolTip (button "tooltip") also takes into account that locations and the related polygons can vary over time.

Filters and Map display

By default the map display and filters will not take into account that the locations shown are time dependent but show the situation as it is at the display time. In the explorer.xml it is possible to configure that the map display shows a time slider

when locations are shown on the map which are time dependent.

		<locationHistoryBarRelativePeriod unit="week" start="-100" end="100"/>

 

The screenshot below shows the slider button which appears when the locationHistoryBarRelativePeriod is configured in the explorer.xml

After pressing this button a time slider appears.

The time slider will show a time mark for each time in the view period were a location shown in the display changes. The default view period will be the period configured in the explorer.xml.

The view period can be changed by selecting the button "Period history time slider" (button with the clock and arrows).

The t0 can be set to the selected time in the time slider by the button  "Set t0 to the selected time".

If a location is not visible at the selected time in the time slider, the location will still be shown in the map and the filter, but will be greyed out to indicate that it is not valid at the selected time.

For performance reasons the icons in the filters will not be updated according to the selected time when the time slider is shown in the map display. Activating the time slider

should be considered as going into a sort of special mode which allows to view how locations were configured in the past.

The MapToolTip (button "tooltip") and MapItemSelectTool (button "select locations with lasso tool") take into account the selected time in time slider.

If the time slider is not selected the system time is used.

Filter change events

Since 2016.02 a filter button has been added which lets the user choose which change events should be included (Map Layers, Locations, Location Attributes, Location Relations):

Together with the menu option for location filter "Show Config Diff for Selected Time" it will show a clear overview of all :

Time dependent map layers

The map layers can be configured in the SystemConfigFiles/Explorer.xml file.

The map layers in the map display can be made time dependent in the same way as the map layers in the grid display.

The example in the section Grid display shows how this can be done.

Transformations

The transformation module automatically takes into account the time dependency of the locations. No configuration is needed in the transformation module. If an end time is introduced for a location and time series are

in the database for this location after the end time, then the part of the time series which is not valid anymore will not be read from the database. The benefit of this approach is that

the configurator doesn't need to remove obsolete parts of time series for the location from the database.

Secondary validation

The secondary validation module also takes into account the time dependency of the locations. The secondary validation will only run if all of the used locations are valid, the values of location attributes used in the

expression can be time dependent and are always resolved for the time step for which the validation is being done.

		<seriesComparisonCheck id="timeDependentSeriesComparisonCheck">
			<expression>output - A1 >@A@</expression>
			<validatingVariableId>output</validatingVariableId>
			<outputFlag>unreliable</outputFlag>
			<logLevel>DEBUG</logLevel>
			<logEventCode>SecondaryValidation.locationSeriesComparisonCheckUnreliable</logEventCode>
			<logMessage>%AMOUNT_CHANGED_FLAGS% flags set to %OUTPUT_FLAG% by [%CHECK_ID%, %EXPRESSION%].</logMessage>
		</seriesComparisonCheck>

 

However it is important to explain how the time dependency of locations influences resolving location attributes.

In the example above, the expression contains one location attribute A. But which location should be used to resolve this location?

Both variable output and variable A1 provide a location which could be used to resolve the attribute. We chose to always use the value of the attribute of the output location in the expression.

Using the input is not very logical and in addition it would still not be clear which location to use in the case that the input consists of time series with more than one location.

 

What should be done in the case that more than one validating variable is configured? In that case the validation is being done for one validating variable at the time.

If 2 validating variables are being used, lets say for example A and B, then the secondary validation will first run for validating variable A and validate the time series defined by this variable.

In that case the location of variable A will be used to determine the value of the location attributes. After that, the secondary validation will run for validating variable B which will mean that the location of this variable will be used.