Introduction

Data from the Improvement Service Spatial Hub can be mapped using ArcGIS Pro. Below are examples showing how this can be achieved using WFS pathways and shapefiles.

At present, it is not possible to read Spatial Hub data into ArcGIS Pro via a Web Map Tile Service (WMTS). However, the IS are working with ESRI to address this issue, and once it is resolved, further guidance on using WMTS will be provided.

Web Feature Services (WFS) are a means of accessing geographic data via a file pathway, drawing directly from the Spatial Hub. The advantage of using WFS files lies in their ability to fetch data in real-time from the Spatial Hub each time a map is refreshed. This approach is more dynamic compared to using static file types that are downloaded and stored on a local device (such as those in a downloads folder). Static files risk becoming outdated unless the source data is frequently checked and manually updated with the latest versions.

This guide assumes that the reader has already registered for a Spatial Hub Account. If this is not the case, please see our FAQ ‘How can I access the Spatial Hub?’ and register for a free account here.

On https://data.spatialhub.scot/ log in and navigate to your chosen dataset, it is essential that you are logged into your account at this stage, otherwise you will not be able to download the data.

This guide uses the ‘Air Quality Management Areas – Scotland’ dataset, available here, as an example:

Co-ordinate Reference Systems

All Spatial Hub datasets are provided in the OSGB 1936 / British National Grid (EPSG:27700) CRS, so please ensure that your ArcGIS Pro project is using the same CRS, otherwise datasets may display incorrectly.

Reading Shapefiles

Shapefiles are available for each dataset on the Spatial Hub.

Clicking the ‘Download’ button opens a drop-down menu offering a choice of Web Services, GeoJSON, Shapefile, or CSV.

Selecting ‘Shapefile’ will open a dialogue box with a dropdown menu offering you a choice of layers to download – most datasets only comprise one layer but some (i.e., Historic Environment Records) will have more.

Select your layer, click ‘Submit’ and then click ‘Accept and Download’ in the subsequent Terms and Conditions dialogue box. The layer will download as a zip file to your default download location (usually the ‘Downloads’ folder), from there you can copy it across to the source folder for your ArcGIS Pro project and then extract the files from the zip folder.

This screenshot shows the downloaded ZIP file, and the five extracted files that you will need to successfully load the shapefile into ArcGIS Pro.

In your ArcGIS Pro project, navigate to your source folder in the ‘Project’ tab of the Catalog pane, a .shp file should be visible in there (e.g., ‘pub_aqma.shp’ in the image below):

Click and drag this file into the ‘Contents’ pane, or right-click on it and select ‘Add to Current Map’ and the data will appear in your Map window. From here you can interrogate and format the shapefile however you wish.

WFS pathways

WFS Pathways are available for each dataset on the Spatial Hub. This section mainly deals with reading them into ArcGIS Pro, before offering some tips on filtering a WFS before download.

Reading WFS Pathways

On https://data.spatialhub.scot/ log in and navigate to your chosen dataset. Again, it is essential that you are logged into your account at this stage, otherwise you will not be able to connect to the web services.

Clicking the ‘Download’ button opens a drop-down menu offering a choice of Web Services, GeoJSON, Shapefile, or CSV.

Selecting ‘Web Services’ will open a dialogue box containing URLs for the dataset’s WFS and WMTS. The URL will include the authkey you will have been assigned when your account was set up.

In your ArcGIS Pro project, navigate to Insert > Connections > Server > New WFS Server:

Clicking on ‘New WFS Server’ will open a dialogue box.

Copy the URL for the WFS from the Spatial Hub dialogue box and paste it into the ‘Server URL:’ field. It is not necessary to alter the other options or fields.

Click ‘OK’. The WFS Server ‘WFS on geo.spatialhub.scot’ will appear in the ‘Project’ tab of the Catalog pane, with the dataset layer available via the drop-down:

Right-click on the layer name and select ‘add to current map’, or simply drag the layer into the Map window to add it to your plot.

ArcGIS Pro sets a limit on the number of features displayed in the map pane to minimise lag when loading layers. The default is 3,000 features. This should be fine for most of the Spatial Hub datasets, as they contain relatively few records and are mostly static.

However, some datasets (e.g., Planning Applications and Historic Environment Records) are very large and frequently updated, and it is unlikely that the 3,000 feature limit will serve you any or all of the features that you are interested in.

It is possible to filter a WFS to select particular attributes, which will enable you to examine all the features from (e.g.) Moray.

Filtering a WFS

Using the Historic Environment records spatial hub dataset as an example, follow the above steps and load the ‘Events’ layer into the Map pane.

Once loaded, open the layer’s attribute table, and you should see exactly 3,000 records from various council areas throughout Scotland.

To see only the HER records within Moray, we need to filter this layer by the attribute ‘council’ using the value ‘Moray’.

In the Catalog pane,Right click the WFS connection (‘WFS on geo.spatialhub.scot.wfs’) and select ‘Properties’. Expand ‘Custom requests parameters’ and add the following rows below the SWAPXY parameters:

‘MAXFEATURES’ is set to an arbitrary, large figure to ensure we get all the the HER records within Moray.

Click ‘OK’ on the Properties dialogue box. The layer should update with every HER record within Moray - open the attribute table to check, you should see just over 11,400 records.

If the layer doesn’t update, remove it from the Contents pane and reload it from the Catalog pane.