Exercise 5: The world

https://giscience.github.io/gis-training-resource-center/content/intro.html

Exercise 5: The world#

Characteristics of the exercise#

Aim of the exercise:

This exercise will help you to get to know the interface of QGIS a bit better. Furthermore, you will load your first data in QGIS and gain some hands-on experience with the layer concept and learn how to reproject layers.

Type of trainings exercise:

  • This exercise can be used in online and presence training.

  • It can be done as a follow-along exercise or individually as a self-study.

Competences covered in this exercise:

  • Creating and saving a new QGIS project

  • Importing vector data (.shp and .gpkg) as well as tabular data (.txt)

  • Understanding the layer concept

  • Navigating the QGIS interface and map canvas

Estimated time demand for the exercise

  • The exercise takes around 30 minutes to complete, depending on the number of participants and trainers.

Relevant Wiki Articles

Instructions for the trainers#

Trainers Corner

Prepare the training

  • Take the time to familiarise yourself with the exercise and the provided material.

  • Prepare a white-board. It can be either a physical whiteboard, a flip-chart, or a digital whiteboard (e.g. Miro board) where the participants can add their findings and questions.

  • Before starting the exercise, make sure everybody has installed QGIS and has downloaded and unzipped the data folder.

  • Check out How to do trainings? for some general tips on training conduction

Conduct the training

Introduction:

  • Introduce the idea and aim of the exercise.

  • Provide the download link and make sure everybody has unzipped the folder before beginning the tasks.

Follow-along:

  • Show and explain each step yourself at least twice and slow enough so everybody can see what you are doing, and follow along in their own QGIS-project.

  • Make sure that everybody is following along and doing the steps themselves by periodically asking if anybody needs help or if everybody is still following.

  • Be open and patient to every question or problem that might come up. Your participants are essentially multitasking by paying attention to your instructions and orienting themselves in their own QGIS-project.

Wrap up:

  • Leave time for any issues or questions concerning the tasks at the end of the exercise.

  • Leave some time for open questions.

Available Data#

Download all datasets here, save the folder on your computer and unzip the file.

https://nexus.heigit.org/repository/gis-training-resource-center/Module_2/Module_2_Exercise_5_The_World.zip

The folder is called “Module_2_Exercise_5_The_World” and contains the whole standard folder structure with all data in the input folder and the additional documentation in the documentation folder.

Tasks#

  1. Open QGIS and create a new project by clicking on Project -> New

  2. Once the project is created save the project in the /Project-subfolder in the /Module_2_Exercise_5_The_World/. In the top bar, click on Project -> Save as and navigate to the folder. Name the project “Module_2_Ex_5_The_World”.

  3. Load the shape file World_countries_generalized.shp into your project by drag and drop (Wiki Video). Or click on Layer-> Add Layer-> Add Vector Layer. Click on the three points and navigate to “World_countries__generalized”. Select the file and click Open. Back in QGIS click Add (Wiki Video).

    Attention

    With both methods, you need to select the file with the ending .shp! A shapefile consists of several files that are referring to each other. The file that holds the geometry information is the file ending with .shp.

  4. Load the GeoPackage file global_power_plant_database_nuclear.gpkg into the QGIS project. You can use one of the methods used in the previous step: Either drag and drop (Wiki Video) the file or click on Layer-> Add Layer-> Add Vector Layer. Click on the three points and navigate to /data/input/. Select the file and click Open. Back in QGIS click Add(Wiki Video).

    Note

    GeoPackage files can contain multiple files, and even whole QGIS projects. When you load such a file in QGIS, a window will appear in which you have to select the files you want to load in your QGIS project.

  5. Next, we want to load the file Significant_earthquake_data.txt into QGIS. Since this is vector data in text format, we need to follow specific steps (Wiki Video).

    • Click on Layer-> Add Layer-> Add Delimited text Layer. Click on the three points and navigate to Significant_earthquake_data.txt in the data/input/-subfolder. Select the file and click Open.

    • In the window “Data Source manager| Delimited Text” in QGIS open the dropdown menu File Format and check Custom delimiter and Tab

    • Open the dropdown menu Geometry definition. Make sure the option Point coordinates is checked. Furthermore, select for X field “LONGITUDE” and for Y field “LATITUDE”.

    • Select the coordinate reference system (CRS) “EPSG:4326-WGS 84”.

    • Click Add.

    Note

    When loading vector data in text format like .csv or .txt in QGIS, these data has to have latitude and longitude columns.

    • X field =“LONGITUDE”

    • Y field = “LATITUDE”.

    ../../_images/en_ex_The_world_add_text_layer_import.png

  6. In the layer panel on the left, arrange the three layers in a practical order. Remember the Layer Concept. The countries-layer should sit below the earthquake and power plant layers.

../../_images/en_m2_ex_5_interface_explanation.png

  1. Interact with the map and explore the data sets. Use the zoom tool and move the map. Where can you find a lot of earthquakes and where are most of the power plants located?

  1. Save your project by clicking on the or use the hotkey combination Ctrl + S.

  2. Your results should look something like this:

../../_images/en_ex_The_world_result.png
Contents