C5/ES4054: Spatial Analysis with GIS 2023-2024
Project
Project selection – two steps
There are two essential steps which each student must complete in the project selection process.
They are:
1. Investigate the data source assigned to you and write a brief report on it (template
provided) in the “Datasources” blog on Blackboard. Include screenshots of some of the
data that you have downloaded and looked at in QGIS. These blogs will be visible to the
whole class and should be helpful to all. NOTE – Don’t upload your report as a file to the
blog. The blog must be fully readable by all the class without opening a file.
2. Having read all the blogs and reflected on the available data sources, choose the topic for
your project. In an email to me (niamh.harty@tcd.ie), outline your plan for your project
using the template provided. Include the data sources you plan to use, the possible GIS
techniques you might use, and your research objectives. You must also provide the title of
your SS/MAI/MSc project.
GIS software to be used
You must carry out your project using QGIS (version 3.28 LTR unless otherwise approved by me).
Due dates
The following table shows the submission dates for the two elements of project selection process.
Item Due date Where to submit
Report on data source Tuesday 3rd October “Datasources” blog on BB
Proposal for your project Wednesday 11th October Email to Niamh Harty
Your GIS project and your BA / MAI / MSc project
The project you undertake for this module must not be work that you are already doing for
another module - i.e. there can be no “double-counting” of work. However, if you have data from
another module with which you could do a new analysis in GIS, that should be acceptable. Please
confirm it with me first, though.
Previous project topics
The list below of topics previously undertaken by students on the module may help you to select
your project topic.
• Variation between house prices and location
• Using the app MerginMaps as a guide to a route described in “Ulysses” by James Joyce
• Green roof potential in Dublin
• The growth of Gaelscoileanna
• Selection of routes for a heritage tour
• Assessment to see if an area is a “15-minute city”
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• A study of bike-sharing schemes in Dublin
• Identification of location for:
o a new pharmacy
o demand-responsive bus services
o new student accommodation in a city
o a new national park to promote biodiversity
o new residential housing
o a new community garden
o a new outdoor gym
o new area to be re-forested
o a new cycleway
o a new Luas route
o a new leisure centre
o a new public transport system for a city
o new Dublinbikes stations
o car parks for electric vehicles
o new wind farm on- or off-shore
o a new amenity in a county of Ireland based on the county plan
• Census data and the changing spatial demography of Ireland:
o shifts in population from rural to urban centres
o crime patterns
o agriculture changes
o education and STEM careers
o Irish language usage
o migration and diversity
Projects for Environmental Science students
All Environmental Science are encouraged to find their own project as described above, but you
may select a project from the following list, if you wish. Datasets will be made available for
Environmental Science students, if requested.
1 A study of septic tanks in Ireland
A shapefile is available with the locations of all the septic tanks in Ireland in 2013. You may study
this in one of a number of ways. You could look at the data in terms of the river catchments in
which the tanks are located. The analysis by river catchments should begin at first order streams,
then increasing the area to second order, then to third etc. The final objective is to quantify the
density of septic tanks in relation to the size of the river catchment. Include other statistics such as
overall population density (urban and rural) as the catchments increase as well as percentage land
use in different types (arable, grassland, forestry, urban etc.). Alternatively, you could look at the
geology and groundwater vulnerability of the locations and see how many are in suitable
locations, and how many are not.
You should note that there are about 720,000 data points in the septic tanks shapefile, and over
225,000 polygons in the GSI groundwater vulnerability shapefile. These large datasets can result in
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QGIS running very slowly on slow computers. You are advised to consider focusing your study on a
small part of Ireland – for example, one county. By carrying out work on one county, you can show
what could be done for the whole country, with more time.
2 The relationship between health and environment: forest cover and life expectancy in
Africa
What is the relationship between health and environmental quality? Research has revealed that
there has been a major decline in the number of vertebrates in the world since the 1970s. At the
same time life expectancy is increasing in all world regions. Without being able to establish
causality, this project examines what the spatial relationship is between forest cover (taken as a
proxy for environmental quality) and life expectancy in Africa. Do urban areas, with more
developed infrastructures, have higher life expectancies, or are “unspoilt”, less degraded, areas
associated with this?
In this project, before the data analysis can be carried out, useful data sources must be found and
evaluated. The World Bank is a good starting point – it has many excellent datasets
https://datacatalog.worldbank.org/
3 Identify areas of organic soils in Ireland suitable for eddy covariance flux measurements
The aim of this project is to map the spatial extent of grasslands that occur on organic soils across
Ireland. This project will be used to identify sites suitable for eddy covariance flux measurements.
These areas must be flat (slope less than 3 degrees) and over 5 hectares in size. Soil data and
landcover can be obtained from the EPA website, and a 25m X 25m digital elevation model (DEM)
for Ireland is on BB in the projects section.
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Report Outline and Marking Scheme
The goal of this assignment is to get you thinking about how the exploration of geographical and
spatial relationships can help you to understand issues or answer research questions. GIS is not
just about mapping information, it is about exploring the roles played by geography, the
environment, and/or spatial relationships in issues of interest to policy-makers, researchers, and
community members. For some issues, geography may be of no relevance, for others it might be
one of many factors, and for some issues it is critical. Often the role of space, geography, and
environment is complex and uncertain (e.g. in health). As in any other issue or research project,
the questions we ask about geographical/spatial relationships should be based on evidence and a
sound theoretical framework.
Pass mark: Please note that the pass mark for the SS Environmental Science students is 40%. The
pass mark for the MAI, MSc, MC and PhD students is 50%.
Your assignment is to prepare a report that contains the following sections (% of total mark in
parentheses):
1. Abstract. (5% of mark) Summarise the key points and findings of your report. This is
equivalent to an Executive Summary and is NOT an introduction.
2. Introduction and Objectives. (10% of mark) This is where you:
• Give the background to your topic
• Provide basic information about the subject matter
• Explain the rationale for your project and how GIS can be of use in the study
• Present your research question(s) and research objectives
• Include a brief literature review.
NOTE! The Introduction must NOT be an abstract.
3. Methodology. (25% of mark) This should include the following:
• Overall approach:
o How did you aim to answer your research question(s) using GIS?
• Data:
o How did you gather, or from where did you obtain, the data?
o You should include a clear table which contains a description of all data, and
the URLs to the data sources. Explain how to download the data, what is
included in it and what the fields are. Someone reading the report should be
able to obtain the same data. You will lose marks if the source of the data is
not provided. If you obtain data from large data stores, such as data.gov.ie,
provide the search criteria required to find the data.
o If you had issues while downloading or when opening the data files in QGIS,
you should clearly describe these and how you overcame them.
o Why did you choose these data sources for your project?
o Comment on the quality, accuracy, and reliability of the data.
• Methods:
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o List the tools/plugins you used. If you used tools and/or plugins not
introduced in the tutorials, describe them clearly and explain how to use
them. Use screenshots to enhance your descriptions/explanations.
o Describe the analyses you carried out and make a flowchart of the GIS
processing steps. The flowchart should include the exact GIS functions by
name for each processing step.
o You do not need to document every single step you took, but anyone who
reads your report should have a clear understanding of what you did and be
able to repeat the steps you took.
4. Results. (25% of mark) Present the key results of your study together with the results of
any intermediate steps which clarify how you arrived at the final results.
All the main maps should be in the body of the report. Additional, interesting but not
essential, maps may be included in an appendix. High quality maps are an essential part of
your report.
The results should be clearly and concisely set out and follow directly from the earlier
sections. Overall achievement is also taken into consideration.
5. Analysis/Discussion. (20% of mark) Analyse the results of your project. Have you answered
your research question(s)? What do your results mean? What are the advantages and
disadvantages of the methods and data you used? Did you encounter any problems? How
reliable are your results? What factors influence the reliability of your results?
6. Conclusions. (10% of mark) Summarise your project and discuss what has been learned.
Additionally, discuss any further analysis you would have liked to do if you had the skills,
time, and/or data to pursue it. The conclusions should be clearly and concisely set out and
follow directly from the earlier sections. Overall achievement is also taken into
consideration.
7. References. (5% of mark) List all references used, and cited in the report, using the Harvard
referencing system.
Each section of the report as set out above, will be marked with reference to the following:
• Presentation: The report should be well structured (sections as detailed above), written in
clear technical language with high quality maps, and well referenced. The Harvard
referencing system should be used.
• Amount of own work done: This includes locating / creating and using relevant spatial
data, literature review, application of GIS techniques, as well as own work put into the
methods of analysis.
• Understanding and difficulty: The report must clearly demonstrate that the basic
principles behind the topic, the methods used, and the conclusions reached, are clearly
understood. Consideration will be given to the difficulty of the topic and the amount of
work required outside the module material provided.
MAI, MSc and MC students:
You must aim to include advanced GIS techniques not covered in the first four tutorials.
You are advised to investigate the techniques presented in Tutorials 5 and 6, and/or
plugins available for QGIS and/or to look at GRASS with QGIS. The final project mark for
an MAI, MSc or MC student who chooses to do a project which uses only the basic GIS
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techniques from the first four tutorials (or similar) will be calculated as above and then
reduced by 20%. A pro-rata reduction will be applied if new but not advanced techniques
are used. Please contact me if you are in any doubt about this.
Senior Sophister students:
You are not expected to use new/advanced GIS techniques, and all spatial data will be
provided if required. You should try to get the datasets yourself, but if you have
difficulty, contact me.
Reduction of overall module mark
As noted in the lectures and in this document, the overall module mark will be reduced for:
• each day of non-attendance at tutorials or lectures
• each unsatisfactory tutorial exercise (e.g. incomplete or not submitted)
• late submission of viable project plan. This includes the blog.
• late submission of the final project
• absence of advanced techniques (for MAI, MSc and MC students only)
• non-submission of all datasets
Submission
What to submit:
• Report:
o 3,000 to 4,000 words (pdf or Word only)
o Pages and sections must be numbered
o You must include a signed and dated declaration that the work presented in the
report is all your own work and has not been presented for another module. If
you simply state that you have completed the “Ready Steady Write” tutorial, that is
not sufficient.
o If you have based your GIS project on work you completed for another module, but
the GIS work is new, make it clear what sections of your report are similar to, or the
same as, work submitted elsewhere. For example, your introduction and literature
review may be very similar to that submitted for another module.
• All the key supporting GIS data files:
o All source, intermediate, and final datasets (Shapefiles/ rasterfiles/ csv / qgz files,
etc.) except for data available online for which you must provide links
o Your mark will be reduced by 5% if you do not submit these files.
o You do not have to submit your source data if you have provided a URL to it, with a
clear description of how to download it if it is complicated.
o Remember that submitting a QGIS project file (.qgz) without the shapefiles, a .shp
without the .dbf/.shx/.prj etc. is useless! And remember that a shapefile is more
than a .shp file!
How to submit:
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• Submit an electronic version via the links provided on Blackboard. There is one link for your
report and another link for your data files. You may have to split the data files into several
zip files if they are large.
When to submit:
• 23.59 on Friday 1st December 2023 (5% less each working day you are late – see below)
Presentations
You may be asked to give a brief presentation of your project work and to answer questions about it. This
may be in person or online.
Important Notes
Please notify me of any problems/requests for extensions BEFORE the deadline. All requests will
require verification (medical certificate, email/letter from Tutor, etc.)
In the event of late submission of the project, a penalty of -5% per working day will be applied to
the mark for that piece of work up to a maximum of four working days after which a zero mark will
be given.
Monday 4th December -5%
Tuesday 5th December -10%
Wednesday 6th December -15%
Thursday 7th December -20%
Friday 8th December 0 % will be applied to the assignment.
Niamh Harty hartyn@tcd.ie 27.9.2023