• geography matters in everything
    • schools
    • neighbors
    • first language
    • daily commute
    • health and associated costs
    • insurance cost
    • health of planet

spatial data

  • spatial data is data with a geographical component connected to some place on the earth
  • maps are used to find out where things are and how to get to those things from current location
    • restaurants
    • roads
    • routes to new places
    • countries
    • population
    • weather
  • maps helps learn about the world we are in

spatial data analysis

analysis: systematic examination of a complex entity to provide new information from what’s already known
  • analysis of spatial data leads to discovery
    • gives information to questions
    • why are things where they are?
    • should they be there?
    • where should they be?
  • spatial data:
    • what is there
    • where it is
  • spatial analysis:
    • analysis of locations
    • analysis of characteristics of those locations
  • real world systems and their interactions may be modeled with spatial data
spatial interaction: measure of movement of phenomena such as the flow of goods, people, or information from place to place
  • spatial analysis allows to problem-solve issues and better understand what’s occurring in the world
    • while the real world is complex, by modeling fundamental systems of the world, a lot is there to be learned about the complex system
  • assess who is at risk of flooding
  • examining distribution of population
    • and natural resources
  • find best places for housing and commercial areas
  • places of risk of avalanches
  • assess green space within a city
  • examples:
    • analysis of land use data, topography and transport data together can be used to choose optimal locations for business sites
    • analysis of demographics and population distribution to ensure we choose to right site for success of the business

Geographical Information Science (GI Science)

  • branch of science that deals with spatial data and spatial issues
  • based on spatial interaction of environmental and human processes
  • GIS: the tool used to capture, store, process, analyze and visualize spatial information
    • GIS: Geographical Information System
    • each type of data is stored as separate layers
    • different layers working together may be used to explore questions and hypothesis
  • spatial models have to decide how to best model reality

basic spatial data types

  1. raster data:
    • real-world entities are represented as regular grids
    • like digital photographs, natural environment is represented as continuous data using raster
  2. vector data:
    • the built human environment and administrative data is modeled using vector data
    • three types
    • points
    • lines
    • areas (polygons)
  3. attribute data
    • information that describes what is known at a location
    • types
    • descriptive: road names or administrative area
    • categorical: road type or land cover type
    • counts: population or number of vehicles
    • intensity: average income or land slope
  • all of these have a location associated with them
  • all spatial data can be mapped and analyzed using GIS
  • can be used to simplify real-world complexity to understand and solve geospatial problems

ArcGIS

  • find the online GIS platform here:
  • goal of learning:
    • gain perspective spatial analysis work
    • acquire ArcGIS skills needed for this spatial analysis course
    • build ArcGIS foundations for future learning
    • reflect on learning through self-assessment quiz after
  • under the gallery nav item, open exercise in map viewer
  • save the map to a local folder using the save as option under save item in the top bar
  • use embed in website to share map on website
  • working with spatial data:
    • sort and query
    • filter
    • symbolize
    • classify
    • managing errors and imperfect data
  • map coordinate system:
    • latitude (equator)
    • longitude (prime meridian)
  • area, length and location can be measured with the measure tool
  • attributes are explored in an attribute table
  • if the current map has attributes associated with it
    • then when something on the map is clicked, all associated attributes show up
    • use table option to view the details of that layer