geo.be Metadata Catalog
geo.be Metadata Catalog (National Geographic Institute)
Continents, countries, sea regions of the world.
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
Daily forecasts for each Belgian commune, from current day up to the next 14 days. Available parameters are : min temperature, max temperature, weather type, wind speed, wind direction, maximum hust speed, quantity of precipitation. This product is not publicly available.
RMI forecasters analyze all the available numeric models and choose those reflecting the situation in Belgium best. These model forecasts are then corrected by the forecasters themselves. Monthly statistics are generated to evaluate the quality of the model data and the accuracy of the corrections applied by the forecasters.
Annual, summer and winter mean potential evapotranspiration given in respectively mm/year and mm/3 months and based on the Penman-Monteith definition. The potential evapotranspiration fields are available for the future target year 2085, which corresponds to the middle of the 30-year period 2071-2100, and for mean and high impact scenarios corresponding respectively to the 50th and 95th percentiles of the change factors.
climate projections,Belgium,Representative Concentration Pathway,high resolution
Meteorology, weather and radiation conditions
•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.
In the follow-up Belspo funded 'CICADA' project (2019-2021, https://www.belspo.be/belspo/brain-be/projects/FinalReports/CICADAbe_FinRep.pdf), these Belgian climate model projections were used to adjust the spread of climate change signals based on the larger model ensemble of all available CMIP5 Global Climate Model runs (https://pcmdi.llnl.gov/mips/cmip5/) and EURO-CORDEX Regional Climate Model runs (https://euro-cordex.net/060378/index.php.en). This multi-model ensemble of climate change signals or factors were used to apply a statistical downscaling or more specifically a quantile perturbation method on the observational climate grid from the Royal Meteorological Institute of Belgium. From those ensembles, 5th, 50th, and 95th percentiles of changes, corresponding to a mean (50th percentiles) and high (5th or 95th percentiles) impact scenario, were obtained for the variables: precipitation, temperature, relative humidity, wind speed, global solar radiation and potential evapotranspiration.
UV Index derived from spectral measurements with a Brewer UV spectrophotometer. This product is not publically available yet.
Every two year the spectrophotometers are calibrated by an external company. A 1000W NIST-traceable reference lamp is used to make an absolute calibration. For the absolute UV calibration small 50W lamps are used once a month to verify the calibration level.
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.
View Service (WMS) for Networks of automatic lidar-ceilometer systems
View Service (WMS) for Networks of automatic lidar-ceilometer systems The data are updated each 10 minutes. Only the archives of the last 30 days are available.
National wastewater-based epidemiological surveillance of psychoactive substances
The national wastewater-based epidemiological surveillance of psychoactive substances monitors the presence of various psychoactive substances in several wastewater treatment plants across Belgium. This dataset contains the results per treatment plant since the beginning of the surveillance in 2025. The results consist of the psychoactive substances 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, psychoactive substances, illicit drugs
Environmental Health Determinant Measure
The surveillance started in 2025 for the whole country. Samples are collected during 7 consecutive days in spring at each selected wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) using 24-hour volume proportional or time proportional auto-samplers. After transport at 4°C, samples are frozen at -20°C until analyzed. The samples are analyzed by the Toxicological Centre of the University of Antwerp. After solid phase extraction, the samples are analyzed LC-MS/MS. 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.
Total number of private households - Flanders and Brussels Capital Region
The number of private households according to official statistics, per administrative unit (region, province, arrondissement and municipalitiy) for Flanders and the Brussels Capital Region
Definitions: In general, a household, in the statistical sense of the term, refers to all the occupants of the same dwelling, without these persons necessarily being linked by family ties (in the case of cohabitation, for example). A household may consist of only one person. Statistics: Household information is extracted by Statbel from two separate data sets. The first dataset contains the reference persons of the households. The second dataset contains the relationships of the household members to the reference person. From this dataset, Statbel also retrieves information on whether the household is a private or collective household. The datasets presented here are for private households only.
INSPIRE view service for the IDOD database-WMS
INSPIRE compliant view service for geographic information of marine datasets made available by the Royal Belgian Institute for Natural Sciences (RBINS) in the IDOD (Integrated and Dynamical Oceanographic Database) database.
Hourly forecasts for each belgian commune, from current hour up to the next 5 days. This product is not publically available.
Royal Meteorological Institute of Belgium
Province of Antwerp Province of West Flanders Province of East Flanders province of Flemisch Brabant Province of Limburg
Royal Belgian Institute for Natural Sciences, Directorate Natural Environment, GeoCell