INSPIRE data specification for the theme Atmospheric Conditions and Meteorological Geographical Features.

Definition:

Theme III-13, Atmospheric Conditions:

Physical conditions in the atmosphere. Includes spatial data based on measurements, on models or on a combination thereof and includes measurements locations. [Directive 2007/2/EC]

Theme III-14, Meteorological Geographical Features:

Weather conditions and their measurements: precipitation, temperature, evapotranspiration, wind speed and direction. [Directive 2007/2/EC]

Description:

A very wide range of activities related to environmental protection require input information on meteorological conditions. Meteorological and related data (land /ocean surface conditions, etc.) held operationally within the European Meteorological Infrastructure (EMI, comprising the national meteorological services collaborating through EUMETNET and the two European organisations ECMWF and EUMETSAT which also report to the national meteorological services) include data on:

available as climatogical estimates, actual measured values, and for most of them forecast values at various time ranges.

Similarly a large variety of air quality related data is available at a number of services throughout Europe.

The overall volume of data is huge. There are several centres in Europe that archive multi-terabytes of meteorological/oceanographic/climatological model data every day, and a substantial part of this is shared between centres and users who can handle data on this massive scale. Globally observed data received at nearly all meteorological centres is Europe is similarly multi-gigabyte in volume. Such resources are not primarily shared using the Internet, but through high capacity dedicated links. For public data access, the data is moderated and summarised into much smaller information products which users can handle using common internet tools.

The derogation in Article 14.2 of the Directive:

"Member States may allow a public authority supplying a service referred to in point (b) of Article 11(1)"

which refers to "View Services":

"…​to apply charges where such charges secure the maintenance of spatial data sets and corresponding data services, especially in cases involving very large volumes of frequently updated data."

is intended to apply to View Services from Meteorological Centres. Every layer (or "field") of a numerical model of different parameters, levels in the vertical and at different times in the future is capable of being treated through a view service as a "map of the atmosphere". While geographic centres may hold a few maps where a view service applies, for meteorological centres, taking into account the number of layers in a numerical model, models of the atmosphere, stratosphere, ocean surface and ocean depths, the number of times a model is run, intermediate runs, ensembles and runs from derived or embedded models which each meteorological centre uses to focus on its regions of interest – but NOT including climate model runs – it is conservatively estimated that there are 100,000 new "maps of the atmosphere" produced daily across Europe.

Considering the Use Cases presented in Annex B it can be said that the whole of this data is potentially useful with respect to achieving the objectives of the INSPIRE Directive. Therefore, a phased approach has been defined where data can be progressively integrated into the INSPIRE framework.

For all types of data only the final processed form of the data may fall within scope; interim results of any processing chain are explicitly excluded from scope.

Many aviation meteorological data products are defined in aviation regulations which are maintained jointly by ICAO and WMO (both recognised by ISO as standards bodies); these are currently excluded from the scope of AC-MF. However, if meteorological elements required by INSPIRE extend up into the atmosphere, they will naturally impinge on aviation regulations. Data modelling for INSPIRE, as it expands should avoid conflicting with these aviation regulations.

With respect to the distinction between the two themes "Atmospheric Conditions" and "Meteorological Geographical Features", no criteria could be found to make it operational, so the version 2 of the data specification document was prepared to cover both themes in one document. It appeared that this did not cause any difficulty with the user needs expressed through the identified Use Cases nor with any of the issues raised during the commenting period on version 2. Therefore, the merging of the two themes into one theme labelled "Atmospheric Conditions and Meteorological Geographical Features" has been proposed and the present version of the data specification document is provided under this label only.

[Directive 2007/2/EC] Directive 2007/2/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 14 March 2007 establishing an Infrastructure for Spatial Information in the European Community (INSPIRE)

[ISO 19107] EN ISO 19107:2005, Geographic Information – Spatial Schema

[ISO 19108] EN ISO 19108:2005, Geographic Information – Temporal Schema

[ISO 19108-c] ISO 19108:2002/Cor 1:2006, Geographic Information – Temporal Schema, Technical Corrigendum 1

[ISO 19111] EN ISO 19111:2007 Geographic information - Spatial referencing by coordinates (ISO 19111:2007)

[ISO 19113] EN ISO 19113:2005, Geographic Information – Quality principles

[ISO 19115] EN ISO 19115:2005, Geographic information – Metadata (ISO 19115:2003)

[ISO 19118] EN ISO 19118:2006, Geographic information – Encoding (ISO 19118:2005)

[ISO 19123] EN ISO 19123:2007, Geographic Information – Schema for coverage geometry and functions

[ISO 19125-1] EN ISO 19125-1:2004, Geographic Information – Simple feature access – Part 1: Common architecture

[ISO 19135] EN ISO 19135:2007 Geographic information – Procedures for item registration (ISO 19135:2005)

[ISO 19138] ISO/TS 19138:2006, Geographic Information – Data quality measures

[ISO 19139] ISO/TS 19139:2007, Geographic information – Metadata – XML schema implementation

[ISO 19157] ISO/DIS 19157, Geographic information – Data quality

[OGC 06-103r4] Implementation Specification for Geographic Information - Simple feature access – Part 1: Common Architecture v1.2.1

NOTE This is an updated version of "EN ISO 19125-1:2004, Geographic information – Simple feature access – Part 1: Common architecture".

[Regulation 1205/2008/EC] Regulation 1205/2008/EC implementing Directive 2007/2/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council as regards metadata

[ISO 19109] ISO 19109:2006, Geographic Information — Rules for application schemas

[ISO 19156] ISO 19156: 2011, Geographic information - Observations and measurements

[WMO 306] Manual on Codes WMO - No 306, Volumes I.1 and I.2, World Meteorological Organisation, ISBN 978-92-63-10306-2.

WMO Manual on the Global Observing System (WMO-No 544)

WMO Manual on the Global Data-processing and Forecasting System (WMO-No. 485)

WMO Manual on the WIS (subject to WMO Congress-XVI 2011 approval)

General terms and definitions helpful for understanding the INSPIRE data specification documents are defined in the INSPIRE Glossary^[14].

The schematic diagram in Figure 1 gives an overview of the relationships between the INSPIRE legal acts (the INSPIRE Directive and Implementing Rules) and the INSPIRE Technical Guidelines. The INSPIRE Directive and Implementing Rules include legally binding requirements that describe, usually on an abstract level, what Member States must implement.

In contrast, the Technical Guidelines define how Member States might implement the requirements included in the INSPIRE Implementing Rules. As such, they may include non-binding technical requirements that must be satisfied if a Member State data provider chooses to conform to the Technical Guidelines. Implementing these Technical Guidelines will maximise the interoperability of INSPIRE spatial data sets.

This section explains some of the basic notions used in the INSPIRE application schemas. These explanations are based on the GCM [DS-D2.5].

The reference systems, units of measure and geographic grid systems included in this sub-section are the defaults to be used for all INSPIRE data sets, unless theme-specific exceptions and/or additional requirements are defined in section 6.2.

Almost all WMO data quality issues are process based and ultimately refer to documents specifying WMO regulations and other descriptive documents summarized in section 7.2. WMO regulations apply globally, and not just to WMO Member States who are also EC Member States.

Meteorological measurements compliant with WMO regulations go through operational procedures:

Minimum standards for quality control of data apply to all WMO operational centres (cf. Manual on the Global Data-processing and Forecasting System, WMO-No. 485). They include quality control at various stages of processing. They apply to both real-time and non-real-time processing and lead to various records of quality-control actions. WMO also establishes standard operating and quality control procedures for atmospheric composition measurements (cf. WMO Global Atmosphere Watch (GAW) report series).

Checking includes:

Records to be maintained include:

In non real time, checking includes in addition:

These quality reports are often held locally and not distributed with the data, which may be distributed worldwide. There is no requirement to collect and distribute this information – which would be new collections of data quality. Very few datasets relevant to this theme will hold or link to this quality data.

Similarly, numerical model output goes through thorough and systematic evaluation and quality assessment. Standard procedures have been developed for the production and exchange of verification results.

The question of the quality of meteorological data is closely related to its representivity. Depending on the way in which it is generated, the representivity of meteorological data can vary to a very large extent:

Local data come from in-situ measurements and are available only for the locations of observing sites; area representative data come mainly from

The WMO quality assurance process is very comparable to the ISO 19158 standard on quality control accreditation for data supply. For each Member as a supplier of observational and forecast data, WMO acts as the client encompassing all other Members. WMO defines the observing standards and the quality control processes at each stage of the data collection and dissemination process by which the data is distributed around the world.

As meteorological observations are transitory there is seldom any opportunity to perform repeat observations. Many of the Data Quality Classes of ISO 19157 are either not relevant, or rather the quality measures required are process based using non-quantitative standards and have only descriptive results referenced to WMO regulations and guides. Quantitative quality measures in WMO are usually post-facto tasks of monitoring and verification. The monitoring process studies the availability, timeliness and quality of data with respect to easily detectable errors. Verification involves matching observations with forecast values from numerical models in a cross validation exercise. Both are separate data gathering and product generation processes in slow time, which generate large amounts of new data.

WMO regulations on data quality are included as sub-topics in a number of different WMO standards documents (there is no single WMO data quality reference document):

There is also European legislation covering air quality;

For WMO and non-WMO derived data, the general principles are likely to hold:

Therefore, we recommend the following:

Table 3 lists all data quality elements and sub-elements that are being used in this specification. Data quality information can be evaluated at level of spatial object, spatial object type, dataset or dataset series. The level at which the evaluation is performed is given in the "Evaluation Scope" column.

The measures to be used for each of the listed data quality sub-elements are defined in the following sub-sections.

No minimum data quality requirements are defined for the spatial data theme Atmospheric Conditions and Meteorological Geographical Features.

No minimum data quality recommendations are defined.

Table 4 gives an overview of the metadata elements specified in Regulation 1205/2008/EC (implementing Directive 2007/2/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council as regards metadata).

The table contains the following information:

Generic guidelines for implementing these elements using ISO 19115 and 19119 are available at https://knowledge-base.inspire.ec.europa.eu/publications/technical-guidance-implementation-inspire-dataset-and-service-metadata-based-isots-191392007_en. The following sections describe additional theme-specific recommendations and requirements for implementing these elements.

These Technical Guidelines propose to implement the required metadata elements based on ISO 19115 and ISO/TS 19139.

The following TG requirements need to be met in order to be conformant with the proposed encoding.

NOTE Section 2.1.2 of the Metadata Technical Guidelines discusses the different ISO 19139 XML schemas that are currently available.

NOTE While this not explicitly required by any of the INSPIRE Implementing Rules, making all metadata of a data set available together and through one service simplifies implementation and usability.

The table contains the following information:

NOTE In this data specification, no exception is specified, so all updates shall be made available at the latest 6 months after the change was applied in the source data set.

According to Article 11(1) of the INSPIRE Directive, Member States shall establish and operate a network of services for INSPIRE spatial data sets and services. The relevant network service types for making spatial data available are:

NOTE For the relevant requirements and recommendations for network services, see the relevant Implementing Rules and Technical Guidelines^[18].

EXAMPLE 1 Through the Get Spatial Objects function, a download service can either download a pre-defined data set or pre-defined part of a data set (non-direct access download service), or give direct access to the spatial objects contained in the data set, and download selections of spatial objects based upon a query (direct access download service). To execute such a request, some of the following information might be required:

EXAMPLE 2 Through the Transform function, a transformation service carries out data content transformations from native data forms to the INSPIRE-compliant form and vice versa. If this operation is directly called by an application to transform source data (e.g. obtained through a download service) that is not yet conformant with this data specification, the following parameters are required:

Input data (mandatory). The data set to be transformed.

It should be noted here that the actual INSPIRE Download Service implementation details and guidance is out-of-scope of this document. This section only aims to provide guidance and requirements on the content of the delivered INSPIRE AC-MF data sets.

The O&M model, as well as the large and frequently changing gridded data sets typical for AC-MF themes, require specific technical guidance by the INSPIRE Network Services Drafting Team. Without such clear guidance it will be difficult to achieve the INSPIRE interoperability goals in issues like

As of writing this document, this kind of guidance has not been provided in the existing versions of Download Service Technical Guidance documents, so unfortunately a reference to it cannot be provided here.

The IRs contain the following two requirements for the encoding to be used to make data available.

NOTE ISO 19118:2011 specifies the requirements for defining encoding rules used for interchange of geographic data within the set of International Standards known as the "ISO 19100 series". An encoding rule allows geographic information defined by application schemas and standardized schemas to be coded into a system-independent data structure suitable for transport and storage. The encoding rule specifies the types of data being coded and the syntax, structure and coding schemes used in the resulting data structure. Specifically, ISO 19118:2011 includes

While the IRs do not oblige the usage of a specific encoding, this Technical Guidelines proposes to make data related to the spatial data theme Atmospheric Conditions and Meteorological Geographical Features available at least in the default encoding(s) specified in section 0. In this section, a number of TG requirements are listed that need to be met in order to be conformant with the default encoding(s).

The proposed default encoding(s) meet the requirements in Article 7 of the IRs, i.e. they are conformant with ISO 19118 and (since they are included in this specification) publicly available.

As defined in the Implementing Rules of INSPIRE Download Services, there are two possibilities for implementing an INSPIRE Download Service: offering pre-defined data sets for download or providing a "direct access" download service with query capabilities. In either case the data sets in the INSPIRE Atmospheric Conditions and Meteorological Geographical Feature themes are collections of Specialised Observation features as defined in the INSPIRE Specialised Observations GML Application Schema.

These collections served using an INSPIRE Download Service can be either pre-defined using semantic grouping (like all measurement events with all measured properties from a single meteorological observation station within one day), or be created ad-hoc as a result of the given selection criteria for the Get Spatial Objects function of a direct-access Download Service.

The following table gives examples of which type of Specialised Observations is most appropriate to be used with typical of meteorological and atmospheric data sets:

For coverages, different encodings may be used for the domain and the range of the coverage. There are several options for packaging the domain and range encoding when delivering coverage data through a download service, as discussed below^[19].].

Multipart representation

For performance reasons, binary file formats are usually preferred to text-based formats such as XML for storing large amounts of coverage data. However, they cannot directly constitute an alternative to pure GML, since their own data structure might often not support all the ISO 19123 elements used to describe coverages in the conceptual model.

The OGC standard GML Application Schema for coverages [OGC 09-146r2] offers a format encoding which combines these two approaches. The first part consists of a GML document representing all coverage components except the range set, which is contained in the second part in some other encoding format such as 'well known' binary formats'. Some information in the second part may be redundant with the GML content of the first part. In this case, consistency must be necessarily ensured, for example by defining a GML mapping of the additional encoding format.

The advantage of this multipart representation is that coverage constituents are not handled individually but as a whole. This is not really the case with GML which also allows the encoding of the value side of the coverage in external binary files, but via references to remote locations.

NOTE The GML Application Schema for Coverages establishes a one-to-one relationship between coverages and multipart document instances.

Reference to an external file

The range set can be encoded within the XML structure as an external binary file using the gml:File element. This has the benefit of efficiently storing the range set data within an external file that is of a well-known format type, for example TIFF or GeoTIFF. This method of encoding is of most use for the storage of large files.

Encoding the range inline

This option encodes the range set data within the XML inline. This is encoded as a DataBlock element. This encoding provides much greater visibility for the range set values, however, this comes at the cost of reduced efficiency. This method of encoding would therefore only be suitable for small datasets.

Encoding the domain inside a JPEG 2000 file

This option consists in packaging all the components of one or several coverages, including the domain expressed in GML, in a single JPEG 2000 file. It is based on the OGC standard GML in JPEG 2000 for Geographic Imagery [OGC 05-047r2], also known as GMLJP2, which specifies how to use GML within the XML boxes of JPEG 2000 files.

TG Requirement 8 implies that all the encoding rules presented in GMLJP2 shall be strictly followed for including GML within JPEG 2000 data files correctly. For the sake of harmonization, the encoding rules adopted for the multipart message encoding should also apply to the GMLJP2 encoding.

The encoding of coverage components in GMLJP2 within a JPEG 2000 file should conform to the rules specified in the Guidelines for the encoding of spatial data [DS-D2.7].

No layers are specified for the themes Atmospheric Conditions and Meteorological Geographical Features.

The generic data model used for defining spatial objects for the AC-MF theme is based on the Observations & Measurements standard (O&M, ISO 19156:2011). Each O&M Observation instance models an observation event for estimating the values one or more atmospherically meaningful properties at a particular place and time (past or future at the time of making the observation). These Observation events are the only spatial objects of the AC-MF data model.

The layers provided by an INSPIRE View Service offering AC-MF data sets typically do not try to visualise the geometries or temporal properties of O&M Observation events, or their features-of-interest, but the results of these Observation events. These result objects are typically modelled as discrete coverages.

The Technical Guidance for the implementation of INSPIRE View Services, version 3.0^[21] contains the following requirement considering the Name property of the INSPIRE View Service:

"Implementation Requirement 39 Name shall be mapped with the <wms:Name> element. The harmonised name of a layer shall comply with the Layer requirements of the [INS DS, Article 14]"

However, the annex II of referred EU Commission regulation only defines the layer names for INSPIRE Annex I themes. The intended relationship between INSPIRE datasets and the View Service layers are further defined in the Draft Implementing Rule View Service, version 3.0^[22]:

"An INSPIRE theme may include several layers, such as the "transport theme", and for each INSPIRE theme the related layer(s) shall be defined. They have the same title but in various languages (read by humans) across all the MS.

They shall have the same name (read by machines, eventually keywords from a controlled list corresponding to data themes) across Europe so that it will be possible for a client application to ask to several View Services one specific layer (using the "harmonised" name). This harmonised name is given by Data Specification Implementing Rules for each INSPIRE theme."

All spatial objects of the AC-MF theme consist of O&M Observation objects, regardless of the types of the contained estimated properties, like precipitation or wind speed. Thus it’s not useful from the end-user perspective to follow the harmonised layer naming convention of the Annex I and II consisting of a theme-specific prefix followed by the name of the spatial object type (like GN.GeographicalNames). If the harmonised naming convention mentioned above would be followed, all the layers would be either of type "ACMF.OM Observation", with no indication of the actual data content visualised by the layer.

The requirement for using harmonised layer names for the AC-MF View Services is not just non-informational, but would also cause serious implementation difficulties for the data providers. In many cases the same service instances used for providing the INSPIRE View Services are also used for providing the same data for fulfilling other national or EU level regulations and data exchange agreements. In these cases the layer names may also be specified by those agreements, or the use of names descriptive in all the involved contexts is required.

It’s still very important to be able to ensure the interoperability of the AC-MF View Services, even when harmonised layer names cannot be used for that purpose: The users of the View Services of different providers should be able to find out which layers (if any) provided by both providers offer visualisations of the same measured or predicted atmospheric properties. This need of using harmonised property names between different data providers has been widely recognised in the scientific community, and several well-know code lists and standardised parameter name lists are currently in use, such as the WMO GRIB codes , Climate Forecast Conventions (CF) Standard names and the NASA Semantic Web for Earth and Environmental Terminology (SWEET) Ontology classes.

The Keyword approach allows the users of AC-MF View Services to recognise the basic geophysical properties, like air temperature, behind each View Service layer, even if the exact definition of the the property would be a complicated one (monthly mean of the daily maximum of the air temperature measurements at 10m height from the ground).

The names used as values of the "vocabulary" attribute for theses keywords should be commonly standardised among the AC-MF INSPIRE user community and a machine-readable metadata description for each of them should be accessible at well-known community catalogs or registries. The allowed values for the values of the vocabulary attribute is not restricted by this document, because this would make the specification too inflexible. However, to encourage harmonisation, two standard vocabularies are recommended here pointing to well-known atmospheric property name definitions: the WMO GRIB codes and the CF convention standard-names:

It’s worth pointing out that the client software should make no assumptions on the data format of the visualised data set based on the used property identifying vocabulary: The GRIB code table name for air temperature "001" may be used for identifying an air temperature layer even if the visualised data had never been encoded in a GRIB file.

A detailed example of a INSPIRE AC-MF compliant WMS 1.3 Capabilities document with the INSPIRE service level metadata references is provided as Annex F.

An even more difficult task that defining layer names, is to define a standard visualisation styles for atmospheric coverage data. Well-know and widely used, even legally mandating meteorological data visualisation styles have been defined the WMO and ICAO, but these are designed for specific usage contexts (weather forecasters and aviation), and may not be suitable for non-expert or cross-theme usage contexts.

Most meteorological properties are portrayed differently according to the intended usage: For example a ground temperature coverage could be visualised as a colour map, an isoline contour plot, or as numerical values at certain points on a map. Which visualisation is the most suitable not only depends on a use case, but also from the selected visualisation styles other layers at display.

For the reasons stated above, this document does not specify any requirements or recommendations for styling of the meteorological coverage data as INSPIRE View Service layers. It is however recommended that existing de facto or de jure standards for coverage and feature meteorological data visualisation be used when the anticipated user community is expecting them: If the service is mainly intended for meteorological expert users, then the visualisations should follow the WMO meteorological data visualisation standards as closely as possible. The compliancy with existing visualisation standards should be indicated in the layer or service metadata.

Conformance class:

http://inspire.ec.europa.eu/conformance-class/ir/ac-mf/as/ac-mf

Conformance class:

http://inspire.ec.europa.eu/conformance-class/ir/ac-mf/rs

Conformance class:

http://inspire.ec.europa.eu/conformance-class/ir/ac-mf/dc

Conformance class:

http://inspire.ec.europa.eu/conformance-class/ir/ac-mf/md

Conformance class:

http://inspire.ec.europa.eu/conformance-class/ir/ac-mf/ia

Conformance class:

http://inspire.ec.europa.eu/conformance-class/ir/ac-mf/de

Conformance class:

http://inspire.ec.europa.eu/conformance-class/tg/ac-mf/3.0

Description

The weather can be the cause of an emergency and/or have a major influence on its impact. Thus, meteorological organisations (such as national meteorological services) can play a key role in providing expert advice on the interpretation and impact of the weather during an emergency, as well as assisting in the development and maintenance of risk registers, providing input into exercise and planning processes and attending incident command and control centres. Specialist forecasters can provide specialist meteorological information to deal with a variety of environmental incidents to the emergency services and other government departments, as well as to the international community and citizens.

Meteorological organisations can provide plume predictions during emergencies, with specialist forecasters interpreting data from the latest observations as well as from sophisticated computer models to deduce the local weather conditions and the areas at risk from the pollutant. Local variations in wind speed and direction are the main influencers on dispersion. Rain at the scene or downwind can also wash the pollutant out of the atmosphere leading to higher concentrations on the ground. The vertical temperature profile of the atmosphere also affects the stability of the air and this determines how high the plume is likely to rise, which subsequently affects the distance it might travel and its behaviour close to hills. This service covers a range of incident types which can result in the release of a potentially hazardous plume:

Numerical atmospheric dispersion modelling environments can utilise a Lagrangian approach to determine the location of a plume: pollutants are represented by a large number of model 'particles' which are released into the modelled atmosphere at the source location. These particles are affected by the local wind speed, atmospheric turbulence, precipitation, and other processes. Each model 'particle' can have its own characteristics, represent different compounds, chemicals and real particulate sizes, and can be affected by temporal and spatial variations in the meteorology including turbulence and loss processes such as precipitation. Such models are able to simulate highly complex dispersion events, predicting the movement of a wide range of pollutants in the atmosphere.

Although these 'model particles' can be shown output directly, either as plots showing each particle at a given time (possibly with colouring used to show height) or as particle trajectories, they are usually accumulated into three-dimensional cells on a regular grid, to give concentration (potentially at different vertical levels and times). They may alternatively be shown in terms of standard deviation from the mid-plume value at a given radius from the release site, a so-called "Area at Risk Map" (usually with at least two threshold values); this is important for early predictions, where the details of release concentrations can be limited, and a prediction of an actual concentration could be misleading.

On notification of an incident, the specialist forecasters will run an atmospheric dispersion model, having input all information provided about the release, to predict the movement, deposition and dispersal of large plumes of material for periods of time ranging from hours to several days. The model produces a geographical display of the movement of the plume showing the area at risk. The response time for providing such information can vary from tens of minutes for small scale events to hours for a predictions running out to a week or more. The models can be re-run as more detail becomes available following an accident, providing more precise concentration and deposition values. However, in most incidents it is at least hours into an event before the composition of chemicals or substances involved is fully known.

Typically, the models are highly configurable, and for more involved situations or non-standard cases, the atmospheric dispersion research scientist will become involved in the process of running the model. Unlike NWP models, the output is not usually a 'complete set', but only those parameters, heights, times, etc that are of interest (and for efficiency, zero values are not output).

Typically, services provided range from an immediate prediction of the direction of the plume, to allow safe approach to an incident (e.g. a large fire), through to short-range predictions of areas of risk (e.g. from chemical release) and longer-range prediction of areas at risk (e.g. from volcanic ash) and the identification of the likely origin of particular pollutant (e.g. for a nuclear incident).

High Level Use Case

The Use Case diagram below shows all the use cases and actors considered. Use cases are colour-coded to indicate their focus, with blue writing used to show the 'super use case' for plume prediction and red writing used to show the four main more specific use cases, which are described in the following section; all other use cases are not explicitly detailed, but may appear as a step within the main use cases. Large actors are involved in the detailed use cases; small actors are included to provide a wider context, but are not involved directly in the detailed use cases.

Actors

Detailed Structured Description of Plume Prediction Use Cases

The plume prediction use cases are presented in more detail using a standard template in the following sections, with primary example (and other examples) indicated in brackets in the title.

Use Case 1.1: Identify Safe Approach to Incident

Use Case 1.2: Identify area at risk from plume

Use Case 1.3: Predict pollutant concentrations & deposition

Use Case 1.4: Identify source of pollutant

High level Use Case

Intense and localized rain events are commonly observed, especially in the Mediterranean area. When occurring over short response time basins, these events lead to flash flood, likely to cause serious damages, especially over urban areas. That is why the need for systems able to assist authorities in related crisis management is critical.

The system can be broadly described in five steps:

Actors

High level UML Diagram

Hydrology is actually the core activity of this use-case, the meteorological sub-cases are intended to provide weather data (mainly rainfall data and very short-range forecasts). So, the overall use-case has been split in order to isolate sub-cases related to the INSPIRE themes "Atmospheric Conditions" and "Meteorological Geographical Features".

Detailed Structured Description of Flash flood management Use Cases

Use Case 2.1.1 - Calculate flash flood extent and its short term evolution