Introduction to
Advanced
Geospatial Data
Science
2
Tools and Software
01
Coordinate Reference System
02
Learning
Working with QGIS Objectives
03
Adding Vector layers and text data
04
05 Joining attribute tables and Spatial joins
Tools and Software
Tools and Software
These are tools and applications that
provide the functionalities for data
processing, analysis, and visualization.
Desktop GIS: QGIS, ArcGIS, GRASS GIS
Cloud-based platform: Google Earth
Engine ,ArcGIS Online,Carto.
Specialized tools: ERDAS Imagine and ENVI
for remote sensing.
Coordinate
Reference System
Co-ordinate Reference System
A Coordinate Reference System defines
how spatial data is represented in terms
of geographic coordinates (latitude and
longitude) or projected coordinates
(e.g., meters or feet).
It helps to define how the two-
dimensional, projected map corresponds
to real-world locations
Source: [Link]
Co-ordinate Reference System
Types of Co-ordinate Reference System
01 Geographic Coordinate System (GCS)-
Based on a spherical model (e.g., WGS 84
Units: Degrees (latitude, longitude).
Projected Coordinate System (PCS)-
02 Translates the spherical model to a flat
surface, Examples: UTM, State Plane
Coordinate System
Source: [Link]
Use Cases
Use Case Illustration
For this course, we will focus on QGIS as our preferred GIS software
QGIS and free data should be downloaded from the links provided below:
Geodata- Nigerian Geodata –Nigerian Geodata –Nigeria
administrative ward Settlement extent Health facility data
boundary
Click to download Click to download
Click to download
Software-QGIS
Nigeria population data
Click to download
Click to download
The links above would be required for the assignments.
Vector data format used in QGIS
This is the most commonly used vector format in GIS and it requires multiple
Shapfile
01 (.shp)
associated files (.shp, .shx, .dbf, .prj, etc.), it is easy to use but has limitations, such as
a 2 GB file size limit and no support for UTF-8
GeoPackage This is frequently used in remote sensing, it supports various raster data types,
02 (.gpkg) including multispectral and hyperspectral.
GeoJSON This is a lightweight format for encoding geographic data in JSON, commonly used for
03 (.geojson) web applications and APIs.
Vector data format used in QGIS
CSV This stores tabular data with latitude and longitude columns for mapping point data,
04 (.csv) it requires careful formatting for spatial data.
Emma Olivia 03
Raster and Database format
GeoTIFF This is the preferred raster format for QGIS, supports
01 (.tif) georeferencing and metadata storage
Raster
data
format Erdas This is a modern alternative to shapefiles, it supports
02 Imagine multiple vector layers, raster layers, and tabular data in a
(.img) single file, it is compact and efficient with no file size limit
Database 01 Spatialite Spatialite (.splite) This is a lightweight geospatial database
(.splite) format based on SQLite
format
Emma Olivia
Note: The preferred data format
GROWTH usage in this course is Spatialite
MANAGER
Introduction to QGIS
Introduction to QGIS
QGIS is a GIS QGIS is used for mapping,
software that is free spatial data processing,
and open source. and spatial analysis.
QGIS Graphical User Interface
When QGIS starts, you are presented with the
GUI divided into 5 areas as shown in the figure: Menu Bar: Provides access to various QGIS
features using a standard hierarchical menu.
Toolbar: Provides access to most of the functions
as the menus, plus additional tools for interacting
with the map.
Map Legend: Lists all the data layers in the
project. This area also allows to change style or
label the layer.
Map View: Shows the vector, raster data and
tables you choose to load.
Status Bar: Shows you your current position in
map coordinates as the mouse pointer is moved
across the map view
Using these five areas, you can add a data layers, zoom to a
specific area in the data, hide or show relevant layers and see
the coordinates, scale and projection of your displayed map.
Adding Layers - Vector
4
1. Select the “add
Vector Layer” 3. Select layer(s) you
want to add
2. Browse to navigate 4. Click “Open” to add
to the folder where
the layer(s) are
saved
Adding a Layer
To load a dataset, start QGIS and click
on the Layer>Add Layer and, Add
Vector Layer or press ctrl+shift+v
(cmd+shift+v).
This will bring up a new dialog:
When File option is selected as Source
type, hit Browse, and look for the state
boundary data you downloaded
Adding a Layer
After selecting the *shp file,
Add Layer menu should look
line the following
Hit Open. After opening the file,
state boundary data for Nigeria
should be presented like as
shown
Adding a Layer - Text Layers
To add a spreadsheet into
QGIS, click on the Layer>Add
Layer and click Add Delimited
Text Layer This will
Let’s add the health facility
data downloaded
Adding a Layer- Text Layer
To This dialog allows you to select a wide range
of properties for your layer. Even though most
common usage of the delimited
File is comma, there are always different
options. If your file using another delimiter
rather than a comma, you can define
Your custom delimiter from Custom delimiters
Hit OK to add your data into QGIS
Attribute Data
3
Attribute Table is divided into three main areas:
Toolbar: This bar holds the functions you can execute to the data in attribute table.
Field Names: Field name, in other words column name defines the attribute of the feature.
Number of the Feature: Shows the number of the entry
Spatial Join
Spatial Join is a classic GIS problem -
transferring attributes from one layer
to another based on their spatial
relationship
In QGIS, this functionality is available through
the Join attributes by location Processing
algorithm.
We will be transferring the attribute data of LGA
to the settlement extent.
Download settlement extent for Nigeria from
GRID3 website Click Here
Join Spreadsheet
There might be a need to join a table in a spreadsheet
to a spatial data for use in your map. This operation is
known as a Table Join. A unique code is needed to be
used to join a table to spatial data.
As you may notice, every LGA has its own name
which is unique to it
To join a spreadsheet, double-click to open
properties of the administrative boundaries layer (LGA)
and select Joins from menu at the left-hand side.
Download the Nigeria LGA population as CSV from
Click to download
It requires signing it before you can download
Join Spreadsheet
For attribute join to work well, the
Hit plus (+) sign to select a layer. join field must be unique and the
Select the related field as follows characters of join layers must be
and hit OK the same as that of target layer
For this dataset, you can use the
district names as a unique field to Congratulations, you have
join as shown here. However, not successfully joined a non-spatial
every dataset allows you to join data to a spatial data
very easily.
Styling
Now let us work on styling to reflect
the population data to the map.
Save the LGA layer as a new data
and ensure the data type for the
population columns are numeric
Double-click/right-click to the
LGA boundaries layer to open the
properties
Styling
Select Style from left-hand menu
Select Graduated from the top
dropdown menu
Select Population in column menu
Select a color ramp you like from color
ramp menu
Select Quantile (Equal Count) from
Mode and select classes (we choose 7)
in classes menu
Hit classify
Hit okay to see your map
Styling
This is a choropleth map, showing
highly dense districts according to
the population.
Tip:
Choropleth maps works well
with ranged set of data.
Styling
As a second phase of styling, let us
change the style of the districts
centers and make some labels.
Double-click to the province centers
layer (district_pt) to open the
properties.
Select Symbology from left-hand
menu
Select city from the symbols menu
Labeling
Select Labels from left-hand menu to
enable labeling
Change No Labels to Show labels for
this layer from top drop-down menu to
enable settings.
Select NAME for Label with drop-down
menu
Change Font, Style and Size as you like
(We choose Arial, regular and 8)
Select Style from left-hand menu
Hit okay to see your map with province
labels!
As a final step, let us look some legends,
titles, and graphical adjustments for the
map.
Summary
In this course we learned the importance of the Coordinate Reference
System (CRS) in ensuring accurate and aligned spatial data
We got hands-on with QGIS, diving into how to add vector
layers and text data effectively
We practiced joining attribute tables and performing spatial
joins and explored some basic geospatial functions.
Assignment
Download the population data from geopode
Download health facility data from GRID3
Download Nigeria boundary data (State and LGA) from GRID3
Download the QGIS software
Download the Nigeria settlement extent data from GRDI3
Perform a Spatial join of the settlement extent with the LGA layer
Perform an attribute join of the LGA layer to the downloaded population
data from Geopode
Generate a map showing the population density of each LGA by
symbolizing the LGA layers and classifying the population value into 7
classes
Download all spatial data as a .sqlite file and tabular data as .csv for
future use
Save the map document for future use and submit your map as an
image