geo.be Metadata Catalog
geo.be Metadata Catalog (National Geographic Institute)
Continents, countries, sea regions of the world.
INSPIRE compliant discovery service for geographic information made available by the Belgian Federal Government.
•The custodian of the resource holds the rights of property (including the rights of intellectual property) to the geographic files •The custodian grants the user the right to use the data for his internal use. •Commercial use of the data under any form is strictly forbidden •Custodian’s name must be mentioned each time the data are being used publically.
Belgian surface rainfall rate and accumulation estimation (QPE)
RADQPE provides high resolution radar-based quantitative precipitation estimation in realtime for Belgium and its surroundings. This product is not publically available yet.
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) This is a human-readable summary of (and not a substitute for) the license. You are free to: Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially. Under the following terms: Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use. No additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.
The RADQPE product is obtained after a careful processing of the weather radar measurements and a merging with rain gauge measurements. The scientific basis can be found in Goudenhoofdt and Delobbe (2016). There is a continuous improvement process based on research and quality control. WEATHER RADAR MEASUREMENTS Radars emit electromagnetic pulses, typically with a length of 500m and a width of 1 degree. Part of the energy of this pulse is reflected back to the radar by precipitation. Radars performs scans at different elevations in about 5 minutes. Estimating rainfall from radar measurements is a challenge because of the many sources of error and uncertainty. RADQPE is based on the 3D reflectivity measurements of the following radars: - Avesnois, France, French National Meteorological Service - Helchteren, Belgium, Flanders Environment Agency - Jabbeke, Belgium, The Royal Meteorological Institute of Belgium - Neuheilenbach, Germany, German National Meteorological Service - Wideumont, Belgium, The Royal Meteorological Institute of Belgium These radars exhibit various technology, scanning strategy and data processing. They use Doppler capabilities to remove non-meteorological echoes with zero velocity (e.g. hills). Some processing can lead to loss of information and make further processing difficult. RAIN GAUGE MEASUREMENTS The following automatic rain gauge networks are used by RADQPE: - 91 weighted gauge OTT2, SPWMI, Belgium - 42 weighted gauge OTT2, VMM, Belgium - 19 weighted gauge OTT2, WL, Belgium The quality control by data providers is void (WL), limited (SPW) or unknown (VMM). No extra quality control is performed before writing the data in the RMIB database. QUALITY CONTROL OF THE RADAR MEASUREMENTS - Identification of permanently contaminated measurements (hills, wind farms, interference). - Correction for radar beam blockage by terrain - Identification of clutter (i.e. non-meteorological echoes or signals) based on satellite cloudiness products - Identification of clutter based on vertical profiles of radar reflectivity - Identification of clutter based on image texture - Identification of clutter based on dual-polarisation technology (only Helchteren and Jabekke) FROM RADAR MEASUREMENTS TO GROUND RAINFALL RATE ESTIMATION 1. Identification of convective precipitation 2. Extrapolation to ground of non convective precipitation using an averaged vertical profile of reflectivity 3. Interpolation of missing data (vertically then horizontally) 4. Conversion of reflectivity into rain rates based on precipitation type (hail, convective, stratiform) SINGLE RADAR ACCUMULATION AND BIAS CORRECTION 1. The movement of precipitation between 5-min snapshots is obtained using optical flow methods. It is used to accumulate rain rates over the past 1 hour and 24 hours. 2. The accumulations are adjusted by a mean field bias (MFB), which is computed based on the rain gauges measurements corresponding to the same duration 3. To remove radar calibration difference before compositing, the single radar rain rates are adjusted by the median of the 24h biases (computed at the previous step) for the past month. COMPOSITING, ACCUMULATION AND RADAR-GAUGE MERGING 1. For the months with dominant convective precipitation (May, June, July, August), the single radar rain rates are combined into a composite by taking the maximum value of the 3 closest radars. 2. For other months, the composite is based on all values weighted based on the distance to the radar. 3. Rainfall accumulation of the composite rain rates are made for the past 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 1 hour and 24 hours. 4. The 1h and 24h composite accumulations are adjusted by the MFB correction 5. The 1h bias correction of the previous step is applied to the composite rain rate. The correction is also applied to the 5 and 10-min composite accumulations
National wastewater-based epidemiological surveillance of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV)
The national wastewater-based epidemiological surveillance of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) monitors the RSV presence in several wastewater treatment plants across Belgium. This dataset contains the results per treatment plant since the beginning of the surveillance in January 2024. The results consist of the RSV concentrations over time as well as other data needed for the interpretations such as the flow rates of the treatment plants and the population covered.
Wastewater, Epidemiological surveillance, Epidemiology, Infectious diseases, RSV, Respiratory syncytial virus
Environmental Health Determinant Measure
The surveillance started in January 2024 for the whole country. Samples are collected every week at each selected wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) using 24-hour volume proportional or time proportional auto-samplers. Samples are stored at 4°C and analyzed within 24 hours. The samples from the Walloon region and Brussels-Capital Region and the provinces of West-Vlanderen, Oost-Vlanderen and Vlaams-Brabant are analyzed by the Foodborne pathogens unit of Sciensano while samples from the provinces of Antwerpen and Limburg are analyzed by the Microbiology, Parasitology and Hygiene Laboratory of the University of Antwerp. The two laboratories use a harmonized protocol. After concentration and RNA extraction, the samples are analyzed by RT-dPCR. Two gene sequences one specific to RSV subgroup A and one to subgroup B are analyzed. These sequences target the N gene encoding for the nucleoprotein. The quality of the results is checked and validated at the laboratory level. If the quality is insufficient, additional analyzes are performed. Once received by the data manager, the laboratory results undergo a second validation before being integrated in the database. The 24 hours-representative flow rates of each WWTP are collected using flowmeters and are provided by the wastewater agencies (Hydria and Aquiris for the WWTPs of Brussels, Société Publique de Gestion de l'Eau (SPGE) for the WWTPs of Wallonia and Aquafin for the WWTPs of Flanders). Domestic inhabitant equivalents (IE) are used to estimate the population coverage of each WWTP. IE are based on several data sources (population data, building type data, connection to the network and WWTPs geographical coverage data). IE are provided by SPGE in Wallonia and by the Vlaamse Milieumaatschappij (VMM) in Flanders. In Brussels the population is estimated based on the data provided by Statbel. The data provided by the wastewater agencies and VMM are validated by the data manager before being integrated in the database.
The composite is produced every 5 minutes using the reflectivity data from the Wideumont and Jabbeke weather radars. This product is not publicly available yet.
The rainfall composite combines 2D products from the Wideumont, Jabbeke and Zaventem weather radars. Reflectivity values are converted into rainrates using the Marshall-Palmer relation. For each pixel, the maximum value of the three products is taken. The effective coverage of the composite is smaller than the bounding box. It is determined by the maximum ranges of the three radars, i.e. 250 km for Wideumont, 300 km for Jabbeke, and 250 km for Zaventem.
Top50Map is a digital version of the NGI’s topographic cartography on a scale of 1:50 000. The images come from the symbolisation of the objects and the themes in the topo-geographic inventory of the Belgian territory (ITGI), which is built and kept up-to-date by the NGI. It can be used for on-screen viewing or printed on scales between 1:25 000 and 1:50 000 (recommended threshold values). Top50Map is meant for regional use.
Top50Map is made by automatic symbolisation. The topo-geographic data set for the 1:50 000 scale is made by generalisation, starting from the reference data set, in order to be suitable for regional use.
Download Service (WFS) for 'User reports from the RMI smartphone app'
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) This is a human-readable summary of (and not a substitute for) the license. You are free to: Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially. Under the following terms: Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use. No additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits. Scientific publications should refer to https://doi.org/10.5194/ecss2023-50
The zones are used as reporting units of the air quality in Belgium. These zones are defined based on Article 3 of the 2004/107/EC Directive and Article 4 of the 2008/50/EC Directive. A zones shall mean a part of the territory of a Member State, as delimited by that Member State for the purposes of air quality assessment and management (source: 2008/50/EC).2008/50/EC Article 4: Establishment of zones and agglomerations: Member States shall establish zones and agglomerations throughout their territory. Air quality assessment and air quality management shall be carried out in all zones and agglomerations.
The dataset is created in the context of the 2008/50/EC Framework Directive. The Belgian territory is devided into zones according to the instructions listed in the 2008/50/EC Directive. Air Quality Assessment Zones are pollutant specific and only applicable for a given year. The data service supports Common Query Language (CQL).
This AtomFeed download service provides access to federal datasets that are not reported under the INSPIRE Directive. The datasets can be accessible for free or under conditions.
Hail products are derived from the observed vertical profiles of radar reflectivity and the NWP vertical profiles of temperature. Three types of products are generated. poh : probability of hail of any size (larger than 0.5 cm diameter)expressed in %. posh : probability of severe hail(larger than 2cm)expressed in %. mesh : maximum expected size of hailexpressed in mm of hailstone diameter. All products are generated every 5 minutes. This product is not publically available yet.
Hail detection module is an implementation of two hail detection algorithms: of Witt and of Waldvogel (Waldvogelet al., 1979). The module takes radar observations and temperature information and estimates probability of hail (POH, %), probability of severe hail (POSH, %) and maximum expected size of hail (MESH, mm). The implementation of the Waldvogel algorithm is based on the Holleman's equation (I. Holleman, 2001), which was verified for Belgium by Delobbe et al. (2003). The POH is derived in the algorithm from the presence of a substantial updraft detected above the freezing level (0º-isoterm). The implementation of the Witt algorithm is based on the weighted integration of the reflectivity values between the heights of 0º-isoterm and -20º-isotherm (Witt et al., 1998). This algorithm provides POSH and MESH estimates.
Abbreviations of place names and administrative units
The reference list in Belgium for the unique abbreviations of all Belgian cities and municipalities. It also includes the submunicipalities, which do not have a clear definition.
Administrative, statistical and cadastral units
The names of towns and municipalities are not always unique. This can sometimes cause problems for the government, because it is not always clear which municipality is being referred to. This is certainly a problem when the municipality has to be used as an abbreviation. In order to work more efficiently, the FPS Justice has therefore drawn up a list of unique abbreviations for each city and (sub)municipality. This ensures that all FPS Justice employees refer to a particular city or municipality in the same way. This should make the work of magistrates, registrars, administrators, etc. easier and more efficient. Other government services, companies, organisations and citizens can also benefit from this system. That is why the NGI is making the list publicly available and it will be used as the reference list in Belgium and the only true source for all abbreviations of cities and municipalities in Belgium. It may be used by all government institutions and the private sector.
Management zones and agglomerations (Air Quality Directive)
Area management/restriction/regulation zones and reporting units
Royal Meteorological Institute of Belgium
Belgian Interregional Environment Agency (IRCEL - CELINE)