Designing a Query Tool for Time Series Data in

ArcGIS Hydro Data Model

By

Reem Jihan Zoun

Outline

Time Series in ArcHydro

Populating Time Series Table

Scope for a Load Data Tool

Query Data Tool –Purpose and Design

Conclusion and Future Work

What is Time Series Data?

Data values that have time component to it or are continuous in time are Time Series Data.

Example of Time Series Data important in hydrology:Year’s rainfallStream flowEvaporationWater level in a stream

Time Series in ArcGIS Hydro Data Model

Time Series Component in ArcGIS Hydro Data model (ArcHydro) was intended to allow for the storage, access, display and analysis of Time Series data.

It consists of two object classes and one relationship. 

They are stored in the Time Series and  TSTypeInfo geodatabase table.

The relationship exists between the TimeSeries and TSTypeInfo object classes.

Populating TimeSeries Table

In order to populate the TimeSeries Table for the purpose of this exercise, time series data were loaded manually  which comprised the following three step process:

1. Get Data from USGS website

2. Formatting the Dataset in MicroSoft Excel

3. Import of Data to  Time Series table in MsAccess

Step 1: Get Data from USGS website

08176500 Station Number for

Victoria Gaging Station

758 data values for each data type for 7 day period !

Real Time Data for Victoria Gaging Station (USGS table format)

Step 2: Formatting the Dataset in Excel

HydroID for Victoria station is 500001 which is assigned in the FeatureID field.Values for both Gage Height and Stream flow data types go to TSValue field.TSTypeID value of 101 was assigned to Gage Height and 102 was assigned to Stream Flow.

Date / Time GAGE HEIGHT (FEET)

Stream-flow (CFS)

11/9/2001 0:15 8.04 1,23011/9/2001 0:30 8.02 1,22011/9/2001 0:45 8.01 1,21011/9/2001 1:00 8.00 1,21011/9/2001 1:15 7.99 1,21011/9/2001 1:30 7.98 1,20011/9/2001 1:45 7.96 1,20011/9/2001 2:00 7.95 1,19011/9/2001 2:15 7.93 1,18011/9/2001 2:30 7.92 1,18011/9/2001 2:45 7.90 1,17011/9/2001 3:00 7.89 1,17011/9/2001 3:15 7.87 1,16011/9/2001 3:30 7.85 1,15011/9/2001 3:45 7.84 1,15011/9/2001 4:00 7.82 1,14011/9/2001 4:15 7.81 1,140

OBJECTID FeatureID TSTypeID TSDateTime TSValue TSDesc1 5000001 101 11/9/2001 0:15 8.042 5000001 101 11/9/2001 0:30 8.023 5000001 101 11/9/2001 0:45 8.014 5000001 101 11/9/2001 1:00 8.005 5000001 101 11/9/2001 1:15 7.996 5000001 101 11/9/2001 1:30 7.987 5000001 101 11/9/2001 1:45 7.968 5000001 101 11/9/2001 2:00 7.959 5000001 101 11/9/2001 2:15 7.93

10 5000001 101 11/9/2001 2:30 7.9211 5000001 101 11/9/2001 2:45 7.9012 5000001 101 11/9/2001 3:00 7.8913 5000001 101 11/9/2001 3:15 7.8714 5000001 101 11/9/2001 3:30 7.8515 5000001 101 11/9/2001 3:45 7.8416 5000001 101 11/9/2001 4:00 7.8217 5000001 101 11/9/2001 4:15 7.81

Step 3: Copy Data to  Time Series table in MsAccess

The TimeSeries table was opened in MS Access to copy data from the formatted Excel spreadsheet.

The tables looked like this after loading data:

Scope for a Load Data Tool

The manual process of loading limited amount of data to the TimeSeries table is quite tedious.

As the size of the dataset will increase, it would be virtually impossible to retrieve these data manually. 

Creation of a tool for loading data to the TimeSeries table will  make the process substantially easier.

There is an existing tool to retrieve stream flow data from USGS website named NWIS.

The NWIS tool specifies the station number and then submits request for data set on the USGS website. All this happens in the background and we don’t even have to open the website.

Purpose of the Query Tool

All the time series data is stored in one large file regardless of feature type and the type of data stored in it Three variables: Feature Classes, Data Types & Time Period

“The objective of the query tool is to display any particular subset of the database for Feature Class, Data Type and Time Period defined by the user.”

Relationship Used for Design of Query Tool

Design of Query Data Tool

User Interface for Query Data Tool

Conclusion and Future Work

Query Data tool will have a very important role in fulfilling the purpose of Time Series Component specially in terms of access, display and analysis.

At present the Query Data tool has user interfaces created with ArcMap and Visual Basic but it doesn’t have any functionality.

Important future work is to write code for the Query Data

Tool.

Acknowledgement

Dr. Maidment for getting me in to the exciting world of Tools and Visual Basic.

Tim Whiteaker

Venkatesh Merwade

The CRWR crew, it’s always fun to work there!!

Questions?