QGIS TRAINING

Introduction to GIS
What is a Geographic Information System
Definitions
• A geographic information system (GIS) integrates hardware,
software, and data for capturing, managing, analyzing, and
displaying all forms of geographically referenced information.

• GIS allows us to view, understand, question, interpret, and visualize

data in many ways that reveal relationships, patterns, and trends in
the form of maps, globes, reports, and charts
 What is a Geographic Information System
Hardware
• GPS handsets
• Digitizing tables to digitize topographic maps and charts
• Plotters and printers

Software
• ArcGIS (ESRI, commercial)
• MapInfo (Pitner Bowes Software, commercial)
• Quantum GIS (open source)
What is a Geographic Information System
QGIS vs ArcGIS
• QGIS and ArcGIS desktop have similar features
• ArcGIS is commercial, well documented and supported
• QGIS is open source and free, extended with plugins, very active community

• ArcGIS is usually favoured by large companies such as utilities who can afford
licencing and training costs
• QGIS is favoured by GIS enthusiasts, students, small companies
 What is a Geographic Information System
Data
• Topographic maps
• Toponyms
• Nautical charts
• Bathymetric charts
• Geomorphological classification
• Aerial and satellite imagery
• Field data
 Topographic maps
• Generally produced by the Lands and Surveys from topographic surveys and aerial
photography
• Show relief, vegetation, water, buildings and relief features
• Legacy maps are often in paper form, use diverse projections/datum and are not
always readily usable in GIS software.
 Toponyms
• Toponyms are geographic names, gathered from old paper maps and charts or
provided by Lands & Surveys
• GeoNames (http://www.geonames.org) is a global geographic database that provides
a geographic index of more than 11 million geographic names (gazetteer)
• An approximate location is associated to place names

• A: administrative areas, country, state, region,...

• H: hydrographic features, bay, channel, stream, lake
• L: land features, parks,area,...
• P: populated places, city, village,... Name Alternate names Latitude Longitude Feature Feature
class code
• R: road, railroad ,… Eua 'Eua, ai wa dao,e-
ua seom, エウア
• S: spot, building, farm,… 島 , 埃瓦島 ,
• T: island, mountain, peak, hill,rock,... 에우아 섬 -21.3632 -174.93 A ADM1
Vai’utukakau -18.5957 -173.926 H BAY
• U: undersea, trench seamount, shoal,… Fa‘onelua Tropical Garden
-21.1371 -175.226 L PRK
• V: forest,coconut grove, bush,… Tefisi Ngaakau,Tefisi -18.6298 -174.014 P PPL
Tonga College `Atele,‘Atele -21.1842 -175.226 S SCHC
Tufaka Island Tufagga -21.067 -175.254 T ISL
Feinga Seamount -20.15 -175.15 U SMU
Feature class Toponyms

T: island, mountain, peak, hill, rock,…

Feature class

H: hydrographic features, bay, channel, stream, lake,…

Feature class Toponyms

P: populated places, city, village

50
0m
0m
72
 Toponyms
Feature class

Feature codes
 Maritime boundaries
Maritime boundaries encompass the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), territorial seas (12
nm), contiguous zones (24 nm), internal waters and archipelagic waters.

Latest maritime boundaries can be obtained from http://www.marineregions.org

Capricorn Seamount
 Nautical charts
• Nautical charts are produced by the hydrographic offices for navigation purpose
• It details coastline, soundings, underwater features, navigation aids and hazards
• Legacy charts are often in paper form, use diverse projections/datum and are not
always readily usable in GIS software
 Bathymetric charts
Bathymetric charts are produced by the hydrographic offices after conducting
bathymetric surveys of the seafloor but actual data is scarce.

Capricorn Seamount
 LiDAR data
LiDAR is a surveying method that measures distance to the plane using laser pulses.
Bathymetric LiDAR can measure depth up to 50 m by using green lasers. That data is
scarce in Pacific countries, and bathymetric LiDAR even rarer.
LiDAR derived information can be used as part of habitat mapping (shallow reefs,
mangroves)

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 Satellite imagery
Low resolution satellite imagery is generally available for free, while high-resolution
imagery must be purchased and licensing usually restrict its distribution

Freely available low resolution multi-spectral & radar satellite imagery

• Landsat 7 ETM+, Landsat 8… : Earth Explorer (http://earthexplorer.usgs.gov)
• Sentinel-1,2,3 : Copernicus Open Access Hub (https://scihub.copernicus.eu)

Ocean monitoring
• Sea Surface Temperature, Chlorophyll-a (SeaWIFS), MODIS : NOAA/NASA
(https://oceancolor.gsfc.nasa.gov)

Commercial high-resolution imagery

• IKONOS, GeoEye, QuickBird, WorldView-1,2,3,4
Pléiades,…

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 Aerial photography
Aerial photography has a higher resolution than satellite imagery but requires flying a
survey plane above the area. Survey drones (fixed-wings) can also be used for small
areas (a few ha)
Legacy aerial surveys were using rolls of films, that needed to be scanned and the
imagery rectified. Nowadays aerial surveys use multispectral sensors similar to satellites.

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 What is a Geographic Information System
Definitions
• A geographic information system (GIS) integrates hardware, software, and data for
capturing, managing, analyzing, and displaying all forms of geographically
referenced information.

• GIS allows us to view, understand, question, interpret, and visualize data in many
ways that reveal relationships, patterns, and trends in the form of maps, globes,
reports, and charts (source: www.gis.com)
Visualizing spatial data
Manipulating spatial data
Visualizing layers in a GIS
 Layer types
Raster Layer
A raster layer is an image (scanned picture, satellite image).

Common image formats used in GIS are

• GeoTIFF (*.TIF)
• ERDAS Compress Wavelets (*.ECW)
Low Res (Landsat 7)
• JPEG 2000 (*.JP2)
• ESRI HDR (*.BIL)
• Binary Grid (*.GRD) for bathymetry and
elevations
High Res (World View 2)
 Layer types
Vector Layer
A vector layer consists in geometrical primitives such as points, lines, polylines and polygons to
which can be associated attributes (name, value etc….)
 
Common vector formats used in GIS are
 
• ESRI Shapefile (*.SHP)
• MapInfo TAB (*.TAB)
• Keyhole Markup Language (*.KML)
• GPS eXchange Format (*.GPX)
 

Vector layers can be manipulated and zoomed-in to any arbitrary resolution.

 Layer types
Delimited Text Layer
Text file with columns separated by a delimiter (often tab, colon or semicolon)

Often used to import field data with GPS position into the GIS.

• Must contain columns with longitude and latitude in decimal degrees

• Coordinate reference system is WGS 84 / ESPG:4326
Layer types
 Layer attributes (vector)
Data associated with points, lines and polygons
 Layer style (vector)
Colors, shapes and sizes for the layer
 Layer style (raster)
Manipulation of the raster image
 QGIS
Latest version of QGIS can be obtained from https://www.qgis.org
QGIS 3.6