Econ 212: GIS

Library Session

Ryan Clement | go/ryan/

who am I?

• I'm Ryan, the Data Services Librarian
• I use he/him/his pronouns
• I work with the Economics, Geography, Sociology/Anthropology, & Philosophy departments
• I help people find and use data
• I can help with all stages of your research!
• You can find more at go/ryan/

what are we covering today?

• what is GIS? what is spatial data?
• what can you use GIS for?
• using QGIS to extract data from a spatial data file

First...what is GIS?

• GIS stands for Geographic Information System
• GIS is a tool used to capture, store, manipulate, analyze, manage, and present geographic data
• The data used with GIS is spatial data (data that is referenced to points on the Earth)
• GIS is not a map!

maps are made of layers

What are our possible layers?

• basemap
• state/administrative borders
• locations of places (e.g. mine locations)
• satellite data (e.g. nighttime light data)
• etc...

Let's make a map!