Open Source Software for Preprocessing GIS Data for Hydrological Models

Topic outline

• General
  
  

  General

  • Introduction For many studies models are used or developed. During modelling courses not much attention is paid to the preprocessing of input data and parameters needed for the models. A lot of open source software is available for this purpose. Besides desktop tools with graphical user interfaces, scripting is very useful for processing large datasets and timeseries. With the skills learned in this course you will be able to more efficiently process your data and setup and improve your models. For whom? The course is designed for professionals (engineers and scientists) active in the water/environmental sector, especially those involved in planning and management of water systems as well as numerical modelling. Pre-requisites are a basic knowledge of computing and water related topics. Learning Objectives After this course you will be able to: Understand the basic concepts of GIS Raster, vector, projections, geospatial analysis Use a GIS for: Thematic mapping Basic data processing and editing Basic geoprocessing and analysis DEM processing and catchment delineation Find open source software and open data References Software The free and open source software (FOSS) used in this course are: QGIS version 2.14 (newer versions have not been tested) GDAL QGIS is a desktop GIS similar to the commercial ArcGIS software. GDAL is the Geodata Abstraction Layer, a set of open source tools that can be used to convert between GIS formats and to reproject data in a standardized way. GDAL commands can also be used in scripts. During the course basic scripting skills will be acquired: shell scripts and the Python programming language. Books The following books are suggested to support the course: P.A. Burrough, R.A. McDonnell & C.D. Lloyd, Principals of Geographical Information Systems,  Oxford University Press, 3rd Edition, 2015 A. Graser, Learning QGIS 2.0, Packt Publishing, 2014 Lecturer Course materials are prepared by Dr. Johannes van der Kwast, lecturer in Ecohydrological Modelling, Water Science and Engineering Department, UNESCO-IHE. Acknowledgements The course materials have been developed for UNESCO-IHE MSc participants and for tailor made trainings for water companies in Uganda. These trainings were financed by the Vitens Evides International (VEI) Fund. Special thanks to Jan Hoogendoorn and Jonne Kleijer, GIS experts from VEI, who contributed to these exercises. The Adjumani dataset in exercise 7 has been deveoped by VEI and the National Water and Sewerage Corporation (NWSC) in Uganda. I thank them for permission to use it for educational purposes. Some illustrations were taken from A gentle Introduction to GIS and from the PCRaster documentation.  I tried to reference the sources and respect the licenses of the used sources. Please contact me if I missed any. Short courses This course material is provided as Open Courseware without support and interaction with lecturers. Only exercises are provided. For full lectures and support from lecturers, please register online for one of the related short courses: Data acquisition, preprocessing and modelling using SWAT Data acquisition, preprocessing and modelling using PCRaster Python Data acquisition, preprocessing and modelling using HEC-RAS Open source software for preprocessing GIS data for hydrological models GIS, SDI and modelling courses can also be provided as tailor made trainings for your organisation. Please contact me for more information.

• Schedule
  
  

  Schedule

  Exercise	Software	Study load (hours)
  Digitizing from a scanned map	QGIS	4
  Importing tabular data into GIS and interpolation	QGIS	4
  Downloading OpenStreetMap data and converting to geodatabase, vector files and raster files	QGIS	8
  Spatial planning using map algebra	QGIS	8
  Catchment delineation	QGIS	8
  The Geodata Abstraction Library and DOS	GDAL	8
• Using QGIS for preprocessing
  
  

  Using QGIS for preprocessing

  • Exercises: Using QGIS for data acquisition and preprocessing File
  • Data Exercise 1: Digitizing from a scanned map File
  • Data Exercise 2: Importing tabular data into GIS and interpolation File
  • Data Exercise 3 (if download from OpenStreetmap does not work) File
  • Data exercise 4: Spatial planning using map algebra File
  • Data Exercise 5: DEM analysis and catchment delineation File
  • Data Exercise 7: Map design File
  • YouTube Channel with screencasts URL
  • Slides of lectures

  • Introduction to GIS from Hans van der Kwast

    GIS fundamentals - vector from Hans van der Kwast

    GIS fundamentals - raster from Hans van der Kwast

    Projections from Hans van der Kwast

    Raster processing from Hans van der Kwast

    Dem analaysis and catchment delineation using GIS from Hans van der Kwast

    Map design in GIS from Hans van der Kwast

    GIS file types from Hans van der Kwast
  • Lecture notes (PDF) Folder
• Using GDAL for preprocessing
  
  

  Using GDAL for preprocessing

  • Exercises: Introduction to DOS and GDAL File
  • Data GDAL Exercises File
  • Excercise data GDAL batch conversion File
• Thanks!
  
  

  Thanks!

  Thanks for choosing this course. We hope it was useful for you. Looking forward to see you at one of our short courses at UNESCO-IHE in the Netherlands!