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Use ADAM in QGIS

ADAM publishes its events through a standard OGC API Features service. QGIS reads that standard natively, so you can load earthquakes, tropical storms and floods as live layers without plugins or downloads, filter them on the server, style them, combine them with your own data and open the products from the attribute table.

This guide uses QGIS 4.2 on macOS. QGIS 3.16 or newer shows the same dialogs.

Before you start

  • QGIS 3.16 LTR or newer.
  • Network access to https://api.adam.geospatial.wfp.org over HTTPS. No account or key is needed.
  • The service URL you will type once: https://api.adam.geospatial.wfp.org/api

The service exposes one collection per data layer. For the three hazards you will mostly use:

Hazard Collection Geometry Contents
Earthquake hazard icon Earthquakes adam.adam_eq_events points one feature per earthquake, with magnitude, intensity, exposed population and product links
Tropical storm hazard icon Tropical storms adam.adam_ts_events points current position of each storm episode, with wind speed, status, alert level and product links
adam.adam_ts_tracks lines observed and forecast track
adam.adam_ts_buffers polygons wind zones around the track, labelled by alert level
adam.adam_ts_nodes points forecast positions with timestamps
adam.adam_ts_disturbance_* same set developing systems not yet named
Flood hazard icon Floods adam.adam_fl_events points satellite-observed flood events with area, population and cropland affected
adam.adam_fl_alerts points river flood forecast alerts with basin, trend and peak date
adam.adam_fl_glofas_gauges_forecast points GLOFAS gauge forecasts
adam.adam_fl_alerts_mom_forecast points seasonal flood outlooks

The full catalogue is described in the Collections reference.

Step 1 — Create the connection

  1. Open Layer ▸ Data Source Manager and select the WFS / OGC API - Features tab.
  2. Click New under Server Connections.
  3. Fill in the dialog:
    • Name: ADAM
    • URL: https://api.adam.geospatial.wfp.org/api
    • Version: OGC API - Features
    • Feature paging: Enabled (optional; the default trusts the server, which supports paging)
    • Leave Authentication empty.
  4. Click OK. Test Connection is available if you want to check reachability first.

Create a New WFS Connection dialog filled in for ADAM: name, URL and version set to OGC API - Features

Step 2 — Browse and add collections

  1. With ADAM selected, click Connect. The list fills with the collections above.
  2. Select one or more collections. Hold Cmd (Ctrl on Windows and Linux) for a multiple selection, for example the four storm layers together.
  3. Decide how much data to fetch with Only request features overlapping the view extent:
    • On (default): QGIS downloads only the features inside the current map view and refreshes as you pan and zoom. Keep it on for the earthquake collection, which holds every event since 2016.
    • Off: QGIS downloads the whole collection once. Fine for small layers such as current storm tracks, slow for large ones.
  4. Click Add, then Close.

Data Source Manager connected to ADAM, showing the twelve collections and the view-extent option

The coordinate reference system is OGC:CRS84, that is WGS 84 with longitude and latitude. QGIS reprojects on the fly, so the layers align with any basemap.

Step 3 — Style and explore

Add the layers in a sensible order: wind buffers at the bottom, tracks above them, event points on top. Then style them from Layer Properties ▸ Symbology:

  • Earthquakes: Graduated by mag, or a single marker sized by magnitude.
  • Storm buffers: Categorized by alert_level_label, with 30 to 40 percent opacity.
  • Storm tracks and events: Categorized by alert_level (Green, Orange, Red).
  • Flood alerts: Categorized by alert or warning.

QGIS with the ADAM earthquake, storm and flood layers loaded over the Indian Ocean and the western Pacific

Use the Identify Features tool on any point to read its attributes, including the URLs of the products described in Event dashboards and products.

Step 4 — Filter on the server

Filters are sent to the API, so only matching features are downloaded. Set one before adding a layer with Build query in the Data Source Manager, or later from Layer ▸ Filter… (the Query Builder). For this provider the Query Builder asks for an OGC API - Features filter: QGIS turns it into the API's CQL2 filter and lets the server do the work. Use field names as listed on the left, comparison operators, LIKE, IN, AND, OR and NOT, string values in single quotes (matching is case-sensitive). Test shows how many features match before you apply the filter.

Query Builder on the earthquake layer with a magnitude and date filter

Filters that work well with the ADAM collections:

Goal Collection Filter
Earthquakes of magnitude 5.5 or more this year adam_eq_events mag >= 5.5 AND published_at > '2026-01-01T00:00:00Z'
Earthquakes with a dashboard adam_eq_events map_created = TRUE
Earthquakes in one country adam_eq_events iso3 = 'IDN'
Earthquakes that reached an alert colour adam_eq_events alert IN ('yellow', 'orange', 'red')
Storms at hurricane strength since August adam_ts_events wind_speed >= 118 AND published_at > '2026-08-01T00:00:00Z'
Storms at Orange alert adam_ts_events alert_level = 'Orange'
One storm, all episodes adam_ts_events name LIKE 'KROVANH%'
Storms affecting a country adam_ts_events countries LIKE '%Philippines%'
Recent storm tracks or wind buffers adam_ts_tracks, adam_ts_buffers updated_at > '2026-08-01T00:00:00Z'
Flood events in one country adam_fl_events country = 'Mozambique'
Flood alerts in one country adam_fl_alerts iso3 = 'MOZ'
Flood alerts processed after a date adam_fl_alerts date_proc > '20260801'

Dates

published_at, updated_at, created_at, from_date and to_date are timestamps. Write the value as a full ISO 8601 timestamp ending in Z, for example '2026-08-01T00:00:00Z': QGIS recognises it and sends the API a proper timestamp literal. A date alone ('2026-08-01') or a timestamp without Z is sent as text, the server rejects the request and the layer comes back empty. Flood collections store dates as plain strings, effective as YYYY-MM-DD and date_proc as YYYYMMDD, so there a quoted string is the right form.

Step 5 — Read the attributes and open the products

Open the attribute table (F6) to see the fields. Each collection carries the figures shown in the Live Map popup plus the URLs of its products.

Attribute table of the filtered earthquake layer: one row per event with country, admin unit, alert colour and alert fields; scroll right for magnitude, place, exposed population and product URLs

Fields worth knowing:

Field Meaning
uid, source_id ADAM identifier and USGS event id
mag, mag_type, depth, mmi magnitude, magnitude type, depth in km, maximum Modified Mercalli Intensity
alert GDACS-style alert colour once assessed
place, adm0_name, adm1_name, iso3 location
pop_est_buff_1..3 people within 15, 30 and 50 km of the epicentre
published_at, alert_sent publication time, whether an email alert went out
dashboard_url, shakemap_url, population_table_url, population_csv_url, shapefile_url products
Field Meaning
name, event_id, episode_id, uid storm name with year suffix, GDACS event and episode ids
storm_status, current_storm_status classification, from tropical depression to category 5
wind_speed, max_storm_surge current wind speed in km/h, storm surge when available
alert_level Green, Orange or Red
countries, iso3 affected countries
pop_est_buff_1..3 people inside the 60, 90 and 120 km/h wind zones
from_date, to_date, published_at episode time span, publication time
wind_map_url, rainfall_map_url, population_table_url, population_csv_url, shapefile_url products
Field Meaning
eventid / alertid identifier, with ISO3 and date
country, iso3, adm1_name, riverbasin location
effective, date_proc observation date, processing date
flood_area, fl_popn, fl_croplnd flooded area in hectares, people and cropland hectares affected (events)
trend, dateofpeak, warning, alert river trend, forecast day of peak, warning and alert levels (alerts)
prod_url PDF report or bulletin

To open a product with one click, add an action to the layer: Layer Properties ▸ Actions ▸ Add, type Open URL, action text [% "dashboard_url" %] (or the URL field of that collection). The action then appears in the attribute table and in the Identify results.

Going further

  • Vector tiles for speed. Every collection is also served as vector tiles, which render instantly at any zoom. Use them for display when the full history of a large collection is on screen, and keep OGC API Features for analysis and attributes. Layer ▸ Data Source Manager ▸ Vector Tile ▸ New ▸ New Generic Connection, then enter the tile URL and, optionally, the style URL of the collection:

    https://api.adam.geospatial.wfp.org/api/collections/adam.adam_eq_events/tiles/WebMercatorQuad/{z}/{x}/{y}
https://api.adam.geospatial.wfp.org/api/collections/adam.adam_eq_events/tiles/WebMercatorQuad/style.json

    Vector Tiles Connection dialog filled in with the ADAM earthquake tile and style URLs

  • Snapshot for offline work. Right-click a layer ▸ Export ▸ Save Features As… and write a GeoPackage. The live layer keeps updating; the export does not.

  • Share the connection. Save in the Data Source Manager writes the connection to an XML file that colleagues can Load.
  • Stay current. Layers are live: refresh the map (F5) to pick up new events. Earthquake features are enriched a few minutes after detection, so a freshly detected event may show empty product fields on first load.

Next steps