Global Flood API

Simulated river discharge at 5 km resolution from 1984 up to 7 months forecast

Location and Time

Daily Weather Variables

Note: Statistical and ensemble forecasts are only available for forecasts.

Settings

API Response

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Data Source

This API uses reanalysis and forecast data from the Global Flood Awareness System (GloFAS). Per default, GloFAS version 4 with seamless data from 1984 until 7 months of forecast is used.

Please note: Due to the 5 km resolution the closest river might not be selected correctly. Varying coordiantes by 0.1° can help to get a more representable discharge rate. The GloFAS website provides additional maps to help understand how rivers are covered in this dataset.

Weather Model Region Spatial Resolution Temporal Resolution Data Length Update frequency
GloFAS v4 Reanalysis Global 0.05° (~5 km) Daily 1984 - July 2022 -
GloFAS v4 Forecast Global 0.05° (~5 km) Daily 30 days forecast Daily
GloFAS v4 Seasonal Forecast Global 0.05° (~5 km) Daily 7 months forecast Monthly
GloFAS v3 Reanalysis Global 0.1° (~11 km) Daily 1984 - July 2022 -
GloFAS v3 Forecast Global 0.1° (~11 km) Daily 30 days forecast Daily
GloFAS v3 Seasonal Forecast Global 0.1° (~11 km) Daily 7 months forecast Monthly

API Documentation

The API endpoint /v1/flood accepts a geographical coordinate and returns river discharge data from the largest river in a 5 km area for the given coordinates. All URL parameters are listed below:

Parameter Format Required Default Description
latitude, longitude Floating point Yes Geographical WGS84 coordinates of the location. Multiple coordinates can be comma separated. E.g. &latitude=52.52,48.85&longitude=13.41,2.35. To return data for multiple locations the JSON output changes to a list of structures. CSV and XLSX formats add a column location_id.
daily String array No A list of weather variables which should be returned. Values can be comma separated, or multiple &daily= parameter in the URL can be used.
timeformat String No iso8601 If format unixtime is selected, all time values are returned in UNIX epoch time in seconds. Please note that all time is then in GMT+0!
past_days Integer No 0 If past_days is set, past data can be returned.
forecast_days Integer (0-210) No 92 Per default, only 92 days are returned. Up to 210 days of forecast are possible.
start_date
end_date
String (yyyy-mm-dd) No The time interval to get data. A day must be specified as an ISO8601 date (e.g. 2022-06-30). Data are available from 1984-01-01 until 7 month forecast.
ensemble Boolean No If True all forecast ensemble members will be returned
cell_selection String No nearest Set a preference how grid-cells are selected. The default land finds a suitable grid-cell on land with similar elevation to the requested coordinates using a 90-meter digital elevation model. sea prefers grid-cells on sea. nearest selects the nearest possible grid-cell.
apikey String No Only required to commercial use to access reserved API resources for customers. The server URL requires the prefix customer-. See pricing for more information.

Additional optional URL parameters will be added. For API stability, no required parameters will be added in the future!

Daily Parameter Definition

The parameter &daily= accepts the following values:

Variable Unit Description
river_discharge m³/s Daily river discharge rate in m³/s
river_discharge_mean
river_discharge_median
river_discharge_max
river_discharge_min
river_discharge_p25
river_discharge_p75
m³/s Statistical analysis from ensemble members for river discharge rate in m³/s. Only available for forecasts and not for consolidated historical data.

JSON Return Object

On success a JSON object will be returned.

      

  "latitude": 52.52,
  "longitude": 13.419,
  "generationtime_ms": 2.2119,
  "timezone": "Europe/Berlin",
  "timezone_abbreviation": "CEST",
  "hourly": {
    "time": ["2022-07-01T00:00", "2022-07-01T01:00", "2022-07-01T02:00", ...],
    "temperature_2m": [13, 12.7, 12.7, 12.5, 12.5, 12.8, 13, 12.9, 13.3, ...]
  },
  "hourly_units": {
    "temperature_2m": "°C"
  },

      
    
Parameter Format Description
latitude, longitude Floating point WGS84 of the center of the weather grid-cell which was used to generate this forecast. This coordinate might be a few kilometers away from the requested coordinate.
generationtime_ms Floating point Generation time of the weather forecast in milliseconds. This is mainly used for performance monitoring and improvements.
daily Object For each selected weather variable, data will be returned as a floating point array. Additionally a time array will be returned with ISO8601 timestamps.
daily_units Object For each selected weather variable, the unit will be listed here.

Errors

In case an error occurs, for example a URL parameter is not correctly specified, a JSON error object is returned with a HTTP 400 status code.

      

  "error": true,
  "reason": "Cannot initialize WeatherVariable from invalid String value tempeture_2m for key hourly"