TY - JOUR
T1 - Data formats and standards for opportunistic rainfall sensors
AU - Fencl, Martin
AU - Nebuloni, Roberto
AU - C. M. Andersson, Jafet
AU - Bares, Vojtech
AU - Blettner, Nico
AU - Cazzaniga, Greta
AU - Chwala, Christian
AU - Colli, Matteo
AU - de Vos, Lotte
AU - El Hachem, Abbas
AU - Galdies, Charles
AU - Giannetti, Filippo
AU - Graf, Maximilian
AU - Jacoby, Dror
AU - Victor Habi, Hai
AU - Musil, Petr
AU - Ostrometzky, Jonatan
AU - Roversi, Giacomo
AU - Sapienza, Fabiola
AU - Seidel, Jochen
AU - Spackova, Anna
AU - van de Beek, Remco
AU - Walraven, Bas
AU - Wilgan, Karina
AU - Zheng, Xin
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
Copyright: © 2024 Fencl M et al.
PY - 2024
Y1 - 2024
N2 - Opportunistic sensors are increasingly used for rainfall measurement. However, their raw data are collected by a variety of systems that are often not primarily intended for rainfall monitoring, resulting in a plethora of different data formats and a lack of common standards. This hinders the sharing of opportunistic sensing (OS) data, their automated processing, and, at the end, their practical usage and integration into standard observation systems. This paper summarises the experiences of the more than 100 members of the OpenSense Cost Action involved in the OS of rainfall. We review the current practice of collecting and storing precipitation OS data and corresponding metadata, and propose new common guidelines describing the requirements on data and metadata collection, harmonising naming conventions, and defining human-readable and machine readable file formats for data and metadata storage. We focus on three sensors identified by the OpenSense community as prominent representatives of the OS of precipitation: Commercial microwave links (CML): fixed point-to-point radio links mainly used as backhauling connections in telecommunication networks Satellite microwave links (SML): radio links between geostationary Earth orbit (GEO) satellites and ground user terminals. Personal weather stations (PWS): non-professional meteorological sensors owned by citizens. The conventions presented in this paper are primarily designed for storing, handling, and sharing historical time series and do not consider specific requirements for using OS data in real time for operational purposes. The conventions are already now accepted by the ever growing OpenSense community and represent an important step towards automated processing of OS raw data and community development of joint OS software packages.
AB - Opportunistic sensors are increasingly used for rainfall measurement. However, their raw data are collected by a variety of systems that are often not primarily intended for rainfall monitoring, resulting in a plethora of different data formats and a lack of common standards. This hinders the sharing of opportunistic sensing (OS) data, their automated processing, and, at the end, their practical usage and integration into standard observation systems. This paper summarises the experiences of the more than 100 members of the OpenSense Cost Action involved in the OS of rainfall. We review the current practice of collecting and storing precipitation OS data and corresponding metadata, and propose new common guidelines describing the requirements on data and metadata collection, harmonising naming conventions, and defining human-readable and machine readable file formats for data and metadata storage. We focus on three sensors identified by the OpenSense community as prominent representatives of the OS of precipitation: Commercial microwave links (CML): fixed point-to-point radio links mainly used as backhauling connections in telecommunication networks Satellite microwave links (SML): radio links between geostationary Earth orbit (GEO) satellites and ground user terminals. Personal weather stations (PWS): non-professional meteorological sensors owned by citizens. The conventions presented in this paper are primarily designed for storing, handling, and sharing historical time series and do not consider specific requirements for using OS data in real time for operational purposes. The conventions are already now accepted by the ever growing OpenSense community and represent an important step towards automated processing of OS raw data and community development of joint OS software packages.
KW - commercial microwave links
KW - data format
KW - data standards
KW - naming conventions
KW - opportunistic rainfall sensing
KW - personal weather stations
KW - satelllite microwave links
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85197853923&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.12688/openreseurope.16068.2
DO - 10.12688/openreseurope.16068.2
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C2 - 38405183
AN - SCOPUS:85197853923
SN - 2732-5121
VL - 3
JO - Open Research Europe
JF - Open Research Europe
M1 - 169
ER -