Pygeo: A Beginners Guide to Spatial Analysis with Python

Python is a high-level, open-sourced and general-purpose programming language and it is the most popular language used in the field of data analysis and science. The objective of this workshop is geared towards breaking down the basics of spatial data and spatial data analysis using python as a tool and python packages developed by the GeoPython ecosystem. This workshop is beginner-friendly, but the basic idea and knowledge of python is recommended as a prerequisite for this workshop. This workshop will first introduce users to the setting up of an anaconda environment to efficiently use python and geospatial python packages. A brief introduction to python variables and general data types and structures in python. The next section will introduce handling and working with tabular data with pandas and array-like data in NumPy. Using this concept to introduce spatial vector data; its different types and components (point, line, polygon, geometry collection). At the next point, we will explain how to read and preprocess geospatial vector data (buffering, spatial filtering and joining, nearest distance analysis etc.) using geopandas and shapely libraries. Moving on, this workshop will also introduce working with raster data using rasterio libraries as well as basic raster analytics and preprocessing (zonal statistics, Band explanation). In addition , the participant of this workshop will be able to do simple raster and vector visualizations (Chlorpoleth Map, Line Map display) using Nigeria climate and environmental data as an example. Finally, users will be pointed to an alternative interface to analyse spatial data (QGIS) and cloud computing interface for spatial analytics with python (GEE (Google Earth Engine and Google Colab)).

Speaker(s): Warrie Warrie, Geospatial Data Scientist, Data Scientist Network (DSN)