Digital Earth

Course manual 2019/2020

Course content

This course prepares for the field course 'Desertification and Land Degradation' in Southeast Spain.
During the Digital Earth (DE) course students collect, organize, analyze and visualize environmental datasets which will be used in the ‘Desertification and Land Degradation’ course.

The topics to be covered in DE include:

• Preparation of a geodatabase in ArcGIS Pro.
• Digitalization and classification of Land Use / Land Cover (LULC), through analysis of high resolution ortho-photo and drone imagery.
• Calculating a Digital Elevation Model (DEM) from a contour line dataset and to extract selected Land Surface Parameters such as slope gradient and aspect maps.
• Application of geospatial analysis techniques to find relations between environmental information layers.
• Apply cartographic design / (3D) visualization and printing of maps for use during the Spain fieldwork.
• Writing a technical GIS report in which the geodatabase design, the geospatial datasets, the methods used and the output results are presented.
• Prepare print-ready pdf field maps.

Study materials

Software

• ArcGIS Pro 2.4

Objectives

• The student can prepare geospatial information layers relevant for fieldwork by integrating existing thematic information and newly prepared data layers into a GIS geodatabase.
• The student can digitize concept geomorphological, land use and hydrological maps and add relevant attribute information based on remote sensing imagery and surface pattern analyses.
• The student understands the theory behind and can analyze remote sensing imagery, with emphasis on the Spain fieldwork area.
• The student can create a technical GIS-report in which the workflow used, the geospatial metadata, the used methods, and the deliverables of the fieldwork area are presented and described.

Teaching methods

• Lecture
• Computer lab session/practical training
• Self-study
• Working independently on e.g. a project or thesis

Four lectures on SE-Spain. Four self-tuition assignments. 
Spain geodatabase project. Writing a GIS project report. Pepare pdf maps and print them.

Learning activities

Attendance

Programme's requirements concerning attendance (OER-B):

• In case of practical sessions, the student is obliged to attend at least of 90% of the sessions and to prepare himself adequately, unless indicated otherwise in the course manual. In case the student attends less than 90%, the practical sessions should be redone entirely.
• In case of tutorials/seminars with assignments, the student is obliged to attend at least 90% of the tutorials/seminars and to prepare himself adequately, unless indicated otherwise in the course manual. In case the student attends less than 90%, the course cannot be finished

Additional requirements for this course:

Programme's requirements concerning attendance (OER-B):

• In case of practical sessions, the student is obliged to attend at least of 90% of the sessions and to prepare himself adequately, unless indicated otherwise in the course manual. In case the student attends less than 90%, the practical sessions should be redone entirely.
• In case of tutorials/seminars with assignments, the student is obliged to attend at least 90% of the tutorials/seminars and to prepare himself adequately, unless indicated otherwise in the course manual. In case the student attends less than 90%, the course cannot be finished

Additional requirements for this course:

Attendance at the lectures is strongly recommended!

For tutorials ('practicals') there is a strict attendance rule: when you’ve missed 2 tutorials, you’re attendance at tutorials will be graded with NA. This results in a NA for the course.

Absence needs to be communicated in advance to the course coordinator.

Assessment

During the Digital Earth course the following deliverables must be handed in that together account to your final mark.

All deliverables can be handed in via Canvas. In the table above these deliverables have been listed, together with the weighing factor that applies for each deliverable. In the table below the hand-in-dates are shown. 

1. The answers to the first practical session of Tuesday February 4th before Friday February 7 2020, 23:59 h.
2. The answers to the second practical session of Friday February 7 before Tuesday  February 11 2020, 23:59 h.
3. The answers to the Google Earth practical of Tuesday February 11th before Friday February 14 2020, 23:59 h.
4. The answers to the Collector App practical of Friday February 14 before Tuesday  February 18 2020, 23:59 h.
5. The results of your Spain GIS project,  before Sunday March 15 2020, 23:59 h.

1.  A technical GIS report.
2.  A geodatabase with all relevant GIS files including metadata.
3.  All ready-to-print pdf files – A3 format, 1:10,000 scale (= 1 cm on the map = 100 meter in the field).

A second attempt for each of the 4 modules is possible during the course, but after the due date of the last of the 4 modules, that is: Tuesday  February 18, 2020, 23:59 h. Maximum score for this second attempt (which will be the new grade for that module) is the grade 6.0. 

Your final mark must be 5.5 or higher.

If deadlines are exceeded without substantial demonstrable reason, re-examination is possible at the re-examination date. Re-examination date will be set by the course coordinator in cooperation with the FPS curriculum coordinator.

N.B. If there are special reasons why you are not able to complete a specific obligatory component in the course, contact the study advisors studieadviseur-iis@uva.nl before the deadline of that specific component. In the case of special circumstances, the study advisor, student and course coordinator can search for alternative solutions.

Assessment diagram

Students that were enrolled in the course in previous years

There are no exemptions for resit students for this course.

Inspection of assessed work

Contact the course coordinator to make an appointment for inspection.

Up to 30 days after the announcement of the result students have the right of inspection of their work (all forms of assessment). Please come to the course coordinator for inspection of your work and grades on Canvas. Please note: you lose the right of feedback from the examiner when you don’t react within 30 days from the end of the course (Wednesday April 1st 2020).

Assignments

Practical 1 with laptops

• A refresher for ArcGIS Pro in which basic techniques and procedures will be illustrated from the mainland of Spain, in ArcGIS. You will work with a digital elevation model (DEM) and a hill shade map, use bookmarks, recognize various file types, use symbology to distinguish map properties, query you data, handle attribute tables, clip raster data, use masking, use multiple data frames and will prepare a final map, to be exported as a .jpg file. You are introduced to a method for data management.

  Test & answers directly via Canvas, similar to the tests of the course Remote Sensing.

Practical 2 with laptops

• A basic dataset for hydrological modeling is a digital elevation model (DEM). Delineation of watersheds and sub-catchments and extraction of the hydrological stream network is necessary before modeling can start. Based on a hydrological network, various hydrological parameters can be calculated and flow tracing can be carried out. You will:

  1. Extract the stream network using a DEM,

  2. Delineate a watershed and divide it into different polygons,

  3. Calculate the drainage density of the watershed.

  If not already installed in your version of GIS, you can download the Arc Hydro Tools for ArcGIS from Canvas.

  Test & answers directly via Canvas, similar to the tests of the course Remote Sensing.

Practical 3 with laptops

• A practical session on air-photo interpretation, geological data extraction and landscape interpretation of the fieldwork area in Spain (Murcia, Parroquia), by using recent drone photos in combination with recent imagery on Google Earth. Land use (change) is another issue.

  Texts, data, questions & answers directly via Canvas ('all-in-one concept').

Practical 4 with laptops and smartphone (1 per group)

• A session on the ESRI collector App. Make sure you download the Collector App before you start this tutorial. See www.gis-studio.nl. In this session you learn to prepare the collector app by downloading maps, and getting familiar with the basic tools of the app. In the second part of the session the collector app is tested outdoors. Assignments are performed around the Science Park with the collector app. Tests via Canvas.

Practical 5 with laptops

• You will, in teams of 4 students, be appointed an area in the fieldwork area in Spain. You are responsible for assembling spatial datasets from the available raw data, such as contour line maps. Assembling means managing and storing your data in a geodatabase, which has the correct coordinate system, is perfectly georeferenced, and has adequate metadata. A project tutorial with guidance on how to prepare datasets will be published on Canvas.

Practicals 6 – 10 with laptops

• Continuation of the team project and individual project - you have time to further analyze your GIS data, add metadata and write a technical GIS-report. The practicals on Tuesdays are mandatory. The two practicals on Fridays are not mandatory, but we have reserved one classroom where you can come and ask questions. Two staff members will be present.

Fraud and plagiarism

The 'Regulations governing fraud and plagiarism for UvA students' applies to this course. This will be monitored carefully. Upon suspicion of fraud or plagiarism the Examinations Board of the programme will be informed. For the 'Regulations governing fraud and plagiarism for UvA students' see: www.student.uva.nl

Course structure

Timetable

The schedule for this course is published on DataNose.

Additional information

Remote Sensing or a comparable GIS course is mandatory.

Last year's course evaluation

In order to provide students some insight how we use the feedback of student evaluations to enhance the quality of education, we decided to include the table below in all course guides.

Contact information

Coordinator

• dr. W.M. de Boer

Staff

• dr. L.H. Cammeraat
• Emma Polman BSc
• Astrid Ruiter MSc
• Jasper Steenvoorden MSc