GIS (geographic information system) software allows the user to treat the Earth’s surface as a continuous array of numbers. Images and raster datasets can be used to rank suitable locations, estimate change, and display phenomena such as elevation, precipitation, or temperature. The session uses percent impervious surface, distance from streams, and slope to assign each parameter a scale from 1 to 9, and weight the relative suitability of different areas. This ‘weighted overlay’ method is useful in a variety of contexts. The QGIS Python console and editor will be used to help build a Python script to process data. Attendees will use QGIS installed on classroom computers.

This event is part of the Geographic Information Systems (GIS) workshop series.