Background
The OpenGIS Web Feature Service 2.0 Interface Standard (WFS 2.0) is applicable to the development of systems that have requirements to access or distribute geospatial feature data over a network. A Web Feature Service (WFS) request consists of a description of query or data transformation operations that are to be applied to one or more features. The request is generated on the client side and posted to a web feature server using HTTP. The web feature server then reads the request and returns a set of results that conforms to the OpenGIS Geography Markup Language (GML) Implementation Specification.
Web feature services offer direct fine-grained access to geographic information at the feature and feature property level and allow clients to retrieve or modify only the data they are seeking, rather than retrieving an entire file.
WFS 2.0 is equivalent to ISO 19142:2010, Geographic information -- Web Feature Service.
The FGDC has already endorsed WFS 1.1. WFS 1.1 will be retained as a legacy standard.
The OpenGIS Web Feature Service 2.0 Interface Standard may be downloaded from http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/wfs.
Additional information
- The WFS standard is part of the SDI standards baseline outlined in Chapter 10: Standards Suites for Spatial Data Infrastructure, http://www.gsdidocs.org/GSDIWiki/index.php/Chapter_10, of the SDI Cookbook.
- GeoConnections Canada has identified the WFS standard as a standard described by and used in the Canadian Geospatial Data Infrastructure (CGDI): see http://www.nrcan.gc.ca/earth-sciences/geomatics/canadas-spatial-data-infrastructure/8902.
- Implementing rules for network services from the Infrastructure for Spatial Information in the European Community (INSPIRE) distinguishes between two types of download service: pre-defined dataset download services (for downloading whole datasets) and direct access download services (for downloading subsets of datasets defined by queries). For the former, the Technical Guidance recommends Atom or WFS 2.0 with stored queries (to return the whole dataset); for the latter, it recommends WFS 2.0. See Technical Guidance for the implementation of INSPIRE Download Services, http://inspire.jrc.ec.europa.eu/documents/Network_Services/Technical_Guidance_Download_Services_v3.1.pdf.
- WFS 2.0 (as ISO 19142:2010) is a mandated standard (required for the management, development, and acquisition of new or improved systems throughout the Department of Defense) in the DoD IT Standards Registry (DISR): see https://nsgreg.nga.mil/DISR-approved.jsp.