DEPARTMENT OF GEOGRAPHY AND ENVIROMNENTAL SCIENCE

ES4411 – SPATIAL ANALYSIS AND DATA MODELLING

PRACTICAL 3 –SPATIAL INTERPOLATION

TRIANGULAR IRREGULAR NETWORK INTERPOLATION

Objectives: Understanding of interpolation as part of spatial analysis
Overview:
Spatial analysis is the process of manipulating spatial information to extract new information and
meaning from the original data.
Spatial interpolation is the process of using points with known values to estimate values at other
unknown points. For example, to make a precipitation (rainfall) map for your country, you will not
find enough evenly spread weather stations to cover the entire region. Spatial interpolation can
estimate the temperatures at locations without recorded data by using known temperature readings
at nearby weather stations. This type of interpolated surface is often called a statistical surface.
Elevation data, precipitation, snow accumulation, water table and population density are other types
of data that can be computed using interpolation.

Inverse Distance Weighted (IDW)

In the IDW interpolation method, the sample points are weighted during interpolation such that the
influence of one point relative to another declines with distance from the unknown point you want to
create.

Inverse Distance Weighted interpolation based on weighted sample point distance (left). Interpolated
IDW surface from elevation vector points (right).
Triangulated Irregular Network (TIN)
TIN interpolation is another popular tool in GIS. A common TIN algorithm is called Delaunay
triangulation. It tries to create a surface formed by triangles of nearest neighbour points. To do this,
circumcircles around selected sample points are created and their intersections are connected to a
network of non overlapping and as compact as possible triangles.

Delaunay triangulation with circumcircles around the red sample data. The resulting interpolated TIN
surface created from elevation vector points is shown on the right.

PROBLEM STATEMENT:
The Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security plans to open a fishery on a said lake in an
area,apart from the characteristics of the soils, and water in the area, they want to know if the depth
and profile of the lake would be okay for good harvest of fish. All the information they have available
comes from an echo depth sounding survey done on the lake. As the GIS officer of the ministry, you
are required to create an interpolated statistical surface that shows which areas of the lake are likely
to be of high depth for good fishing and breeding.

Data :- Boundaries of the lake and Island, Readings from an echo sounder in form of shapefiles

Methodology
Creating a statistical surface using TIN Interpolation:
1. Load all the data provided into the QGIS software.
2. Use the Processing toolbox to search for TIN interpolation.
3. Select the Echo_Soundings as input vector layer and Elevation as the interpolation
attribute, the click on the add button.
4. Then select Island as a vector layer, elevation as interpolation attribute. Then click add
button and change type of layer to break lines.
5. For extent use the Boundary and set the pixel size as 5
Clipping the surface to the given boundary:
6. From the Processing toolbox search for raster extraction and clip raster by mask layer.
Select the Boundary for mask layer.
7. Change the symbology of the statistical surface to singleband pseudocolour and use
appropriate color ramp to represent the depth profile (blue-shallow water, red – deep
water)
8. Classify the depth profile using 5 classes.
Creating Contours:
9. From the processing toolbox, go to raster extraction and contour tool and use the clipped
elevation TIN to create contours with an interval of 5.
10. Change the color of the contours to brown and label the contours using a curved
placement style.
11. Present your maps on a layout and add the map elements. Export your map to pdf.
12. Label the map as studentno_Practical3.pdf and Submit your Map on /before Monday 4th
MARCH 2024 5:00 PM
There is a deduction penalty of 25 % per day for late submissions.