User guide

The Obs class

The Obs class holds the measurements and metadata for one timeseries. There are currently 5 specific Obs classes for different types of measurements:

  • GroundwaterObs: for groundwater measurements

  • WaterQualityObs: for (ground)water quality measurements

  • WaterlvlObs: for surface water level measurements

  • ModelObs: for hydropandas from a MODFLOW model

  • MeteoObs: for hydropandas from KNMI or other meteorological services

  • PrecipitationObs: for precipitation observations, subclass of MeteoObs

  • EvaporationObs: for evaporation observations, subclass of MeteoObs

Each of these Obs classes is essentially a pandas DataFrame with additional methods and attributes related to the type of measurement that it holds. The classes also contain specific methods to read data from specific sources.

The ObsCollection class

The ObsCollection class, as the name implies, represents a collection of Obs classes, e.g. 10 timeseries of the groundwater level in a certain area. The ObsCollection is also a pandas DataFrame in which each timeseries is stored in a different row. Each row contains metadata (e.g. latitude and longitude of the observation point) and the Obs object (DataFrame) that holds the measurements. It is recommended to let an ObsCollection contain only one Obs type, e.g. to create an ObsCollection for 10 GroundwaterObs, and a separate ObsCollection for 5 WaterlvlObs.

Like the Obs class, the ObsCollection class contains a bunch of methods for reading data from different sources.