Earthsys 144: Fundamentals of GIScience

Introduction to Spatial Concepts and Applications

where is your data? gis.stanford.edu

https://slides.com/staceymaples/earthsys144-lecture01

Waldo Tobler's 1st Law of Geography

"everything is related to everything else, but near things are more related than distant things."

https://slides.com/staceymaples/earthsys144-lecture01

Stace's 1st Law of Geography

Everything is somewhere, and that somewhere matters."

https://slides.com/staceymaples/earthsys144-lecture01

Learning Objectives

The goal of this course is to provide students with hands-on experience in using the latest geospatial methodologies, and to establish the foundation for students to use “spatial thinking” and spatial technologies to enhance their future research and work.

https://slides.com/staceymaples/earthsys144-lecture01

Be this...

not this...

Spatial Data is Everywhere

https://slides.com/staceymaples/earthsys144-lecture01

What is (a) GIS?

GIS

Geographic Information Science

Geographic Information Systems

Geographic Information Science

Geographic Information System

...a computer-based system to aid in the collection, maintenance, storage, analysis, output, and distribution of spatial data and information.

(Bolstad, 22)

People?!

Geographic Information Science

Geographic Information System

Geographic Information Software

...deals with the techniques & models to capture, manage, analyze and present geographic information. 

Text

Rosnay, J. D. (1979). The macroscope: A new world scientific system. Harper & Row.

Who is GIS useful for?

Everything is somewhere, and that somewhere matters

Geographic Information Science

is fundamentally independent of specific  application areas.

How Does GIS Model the World?

Vector Data

Raster Data

Raster Data is Pixels

Pixels are numeric values

Everything is somewhere, but how do we say where?

Geographic Coordinate Systems

Projected Coordinate Systems

Web Maps

The "special" case of Web Mercator

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/bingmaps/articles/bing-maps-tile-system

https://a.tile.openstreetmap.org/0/0/0.png

https://a.tile.openstreetmap.org/15/5263/12704.png

Thinking "Spatially"

Spatial Relationships

• Adjacency
• Containment
• Intersection
• Proximity

Proximity

Intersection

Zonal Statistics

Simulation

• Hillshade
• Viewshed
• Hydrology
• Movement/Least-cost paths
• Agent-based models

Simulation (Viewshed)

Applications

https://tasks.hotosm.org/

Platforms & Software

Desktop Software

QGIS

ArcGIS Desktop & ArcGIS Pro

RStudio

OpenRefine

Cloud/WebGIS

ArcGIS Online

Mapbox Studio

CARTO.com

Google Earth Engine

APIs / SDKs / Libraries

GDAL

Geospatial Data Abstraction Library

Mapbox

Geonames.org
Geolocate
Google Maps API

Leaflet & Turf.js

Data Sources

http://earthworks.stanford.edu

OpenStreetMap.org

https://data.humdata.org/

https://simplyanalytics.com

https://livingatlas.arcgis.com/

We made it to the End of the first lecture!

Bolstad, Ch. 1;

Tomlin, Introduction;

Esri Map Book Online

Readings