Introduction to Digital

Mapping with QGIS

Victoria Sarmiento-G.
Ph.D. Student Geography and Urban Studies
 Be patient. You are learning a new
skill and it takes time.

Learning from your mistakes is going

to be very helpful for this process.

https://www.redbubble.com/i/poster/Trust-the-Process-2-by-CaloyAurellano/29887394.LVTDI
CONTENT 1. What is a Geographic Information System - GIS
2. Types of GIS Data: Vector and Raster
3. Key concepts in GIS
❏ Scale
❏ Resolution
❏ Coordinate Reference Systems
4. Basics of QGIS
5. Sources of GIS Data
6. Exercises: Adding layers, changing symbology, using
base maps, familiarizing with the CRS, working with
the Layout, and printing your map!
What do you know about Geographic Information Systems?
 Geographic Information System
System for:
Software ❏ Capturing
❏ Storing
❏ Querying
Hardware
❏ Analyzing
❏ Visualize
Data

GIS

People Methods

LOCATION
Overview of the development of GIS

Remoaldo, P. & Ribeiro, V., Lopes, H., & da Silva, S. C. (2017)

 LAYERS

https://www.vancecounty.org/departments/gis-geographic-information-system/
 MAIN TYPES OF GIS DATA

Polygons

https://umar-yusuf.blogspot.com/2016/05/working-with-vector-and-raster-data-in.html
 Examples of Vector data

Shapefiles (exclusive of ArcGIS)

GeoJSON

https://ucladataguides.readthedocs.io/en/latest/working_with_mapping/agol.html
 GeoTIFF - .tif

https://docs.qgis.org/3.22/en/docs/gentle_gis_introduction/raster_data.html
 The concept of scale in GIS
The relationship between the distance on the map to the
actual distance in the “real world”.

Small scales refers to larger Large scales refers to local areas.

areas. E.g Global maps More detailed information
 Resolution
● Determined by the size of the pixel

● Raster with a pixel size covering a small area are called ‘high resolution’
images because it is possible to make out a high degree of detail in the raster.

● Raster with a pixel size covering a large area are called ‘low resolution’
because the amount of detail shown is low.
 Coordinate Reference Systems

CRS is a framework used to precisely measure

locations on the surface of the Earth as
coordinates. It is thus the application of the
abstract mathematics of coordinate systems and
analytic geometry to the geographic space
(Wikipedia).

Projected Coordinate System:

Geographic Coordinate System:
A standardized cartesian coordinate
A spherical coordinate system
system that models the Earth (or more
measuring locations directly on the
commonly, a large region thereof) as a
Earth (modeled as a sphere or ellipsoid)
plane, measuring locations from an
using latitude (degrees north or south of
arbitrary origin point along x and y axes
the equator) and longitude (degrees
more or less aligned with the cardinal
west or east of a prime meridian).
directions.
 Maps Projections

https://youtu.be/kIID5FDi2JQ
 WHY USING QGIS?

● Open source software

● It could be used in several

Operating systems, like
Windows, iOS and Linux

● Great performance
handling GIS data

● Strong community

● Free!
https://docs.qgis.org/3.22/en/docs/user_manual/introduction/qgis_gui.html#menu-bar
Let's start hands-on learning Digital Mapping!
BASICS OF QGIS
 SOURCES OF RASTER DATA

SRTM - DEM https://earthexplorer.usgs.gov/ You need to create an account to download the data

Information about the DEM

https://www.usgs.gov/centers/eros/science/usgs-eros-archive-digital-elevation-shuttle-radar-to
pography-mission-srtm-void?qt-science_center_objects=0#qt-science_center_objects

Pennsylvania https://www.pasda.psu.edu/

Climate (Global) https://worldclim.org/data/index.html, https://www.chc.ucsb.edu/data

Land cover information - United States https://www.mrlc.gov/

Environmental datasets https://glad.umd.edu/dataset

TUTORIALS - GIS INFORMATION

❖ What is a Geographic Information System

https://docs.qgis.org/3.22/en/docs/gentle_gis_introduction/introducing_gis.ht
ml

❖ What is a Raster
https://docs.qgis.org/3.22/en/docs/gentle_gis_introduction/raster_data.html

❖ Projection

https://docs.qgis.org/3.22/en/docs/gentle_gis_introduction/coordinate_refere
nce_systems.html#gis-coord-ref-system

https://www.esri.com/arcgis-blog/products/arcgis-pro/mapping/gcs_vs_pcs/
[email protected]
 Introduction to Digital
Mapping QGIS
Victoria Sarmiento-G.
Ph.D. Student Geography and Urban Studies

Source: https://inbo.github.io/tutorials/tutorials/spatial_standards_raster/