Customized Thematic Maps: Village Road Network

In a world full of ready access to knowledge, getting the right direction becomes crucial. At a click of a button, we can get access to a lot of data however what we often really need is a focused blueprint. Welcome to the world of customized thematic maps. This post is about how a customized thematic road network map can give us an edge in planning. 

As a part of our endeavour to document our entire village biodiversity, we need to plan documentation trails for field data collection. This sounds straightforward. Google maps? You may say. here are some difficulties 

• Village roads are better known to the village people rather than google. (Think of all your childhood secret trails and escape routes after stealing mangoes)  
• Satellite imagery/maps do not represent village/ward/other boundaries however local landmarks do. 
• Most often, the type of road, its status is not shown on ready available roads maps. 
• All you need is just the Road map minus the clutter.

Therefore we took up this task to compile a road network map for Betalbatim Village in Salcete Goa. We will keep on updating this but for now, we shall plan our documentation trails for birds, religious structures etc.. with this map. 

Presenting a clutter-free thematic road map of Betalbatim village below. 

Road network overlaid on Satellite Imagery

How will you use your village road network map? Tell us in the comments below. 

Thank you, readers. 

GeoSensitive: Simplifying Decision Making - Services Offered

GeoSensitive prides itself in being a service provider to the bottom level decision-maker and upwards. We deliver spatial insights using Geographic Information Systems and Remote Sensing for decision making that impact lives, livelihoods and our environment. Our speciality is that we do this using a collection of some of the worlds leading open-source GIS platforms, skills we have honed over a period of 5 years. This allows us to provide the best and latest technology solutions at significantly lower project costs.

Our services cover two broad aspects

• Providing Geographic Information Systems Services and Remote Sensing Services for quick decision making and facilitating better and efficient management of resources to the people of Goa.
• Offering professional GIS skill development training on the world’s leading open-source GIS platform i.e., QGIS. 

 Our customers include- NGO'S, Local panchayat bodies, Businesses, Researchers, Farmer groups etc. 

Technical Services

Geosensitive provides specific technical expertise for the clients. These include but are not limited to 

• GIS mapping
• Field Data Collection/Surveying
• Terrain Analysis
• Hydrological Modelling
•  Digitization of existing maps

Training Services

Geosensitive provides education to the client. This can take the form of workshops, coaching, on-the-job support, etc. The following workshops can be curated as per the needs of our clients.

• Basic mapping using QGIS- 2-days (hands-on program).
• Advanced mapping using QGIS- 6 days (hands-on program).
• Ground truthing and Field data collection – 2-days (hands-on program).
• Basics of Satellite Remote Sensing – 6 days (hands-on program).

Specialized Services

Geosensitive provides specialized expertise and advice to the client.

• Spatial Analysis
• Site Suitability Analysis based on set criteria
• Remote Sensing Applications

Project Management

This includes completing a broad range of tasks for the client that is delivered as a package.

• Providing training and follow-up for employees.
• Overseeing implementation of the system.

We are always looking to upgrade our knowledge and expertise by tackling new problems and are happy to discuss burning issues concerning your environment/locality. Write in the comments below.

Drop-in an email at geosensitive.goa@gmail.com to connect with us and we will be happy to respond.   

Mobile GIS for Ground Truthing

In this post, I wish to highlight the usefulness of mobile GIS for ground-truthing work. First of all, what is ground-truthing? Simply put it is verifying the features/facts present on the ground. Why am I talking about ground-truthing? Recently a lot of villages in Goa received notices from various government departments saying that officials will be deputed for ground-truthing work related to Coastal Zone Management Plans.  This exercise is very important considering the fact that many important features such as sand dunes, khazan lands, fish breeding areas, fishing areas, water bodies, mangroves, coastal infrastructure and several other cultural and heritage structures were missed in the proposed plans. Most of the villages in Goa identified these errors and made their own plans with the help of NGO'S and handed these over to the State Coastal Zone Management Authority in the form of hard copy maps and also in the form of soft copy Georeferenced Pdf file format.    

It is observed that the deputed government officials are finding it difficult to accurately locate these features onto the cadastral plan used by them. A very easy approach to solve this problem is the use of GIS apps on a GPS enabled mobile device.  

The app allows one to stack/overlay georeferenced layers of maps one above another and using the inbuilt GPS on the mobile device one can easily identify their location on each of the maps. The maps in this case would be 1. Proposed CZMP 2. Peoples CZMP 3. Cadastral Plan and 4. Satellite Imagery. The location is updated as one moves from one location to another just like a car navigation system but with your choice of the base map instead of the default satellite/road imagery. In addition to this, the app can also be configured to collect additional attribute data in the form of geotagged photographs, text, numbers, booleans etc. 

Screenshot shows the app interface with Betalbatim Village Peoples CZMP stacked on top of Satellite Imagery, Blue dot indicates my location at the time of taking this image. 

Detailed view of the Peoples CZMP map with a scale and finer details on zooming in on the location. Note: The location of the device is out of the scene at the time of taking this imagery hence no blue dot indicating the location on a map.  

Thank you. 

GeoSensitive- Providing Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Systems intelligence for informed decision making.

Interactive Web Maps: Goa Covid-19 Status as on 25/05/2021

Every once in a while we deal with data in the tabular form. Long tables of data are boring, especially when the data in question has some spatial attributes to it. So when I noticed the government website disseminating covid related information using a table it got me thinking, can this be done better? can we tell the covid story more efficiently so that anybody can understand the situation? and so I thought of making an interactive webmap of the covid-19 status in Goa as on 25/5/2021. Not only was I successful in creating one but it was all done using free to use open source tools including QGIS, WebMap plugin, and Git. 

Goa Covid information is available on the government portal at https://www.goa.gov.in/covid-19/. 

The boring form of spatial data presentation

    A better way of presenting Spatial Data.

Check out the interactive webmap below.  You can play around with the point and polygon features to access additional details such as the number of reported active cases, taluka name, place name etc. 

So what do you think? .... webmaps V/s Tables. 

Google Earth Engine: A powerful application for Earth Scientists

Hello Readers!

Have you ever faced the difficulty of downloading a vast amount of satellite data due to slow internet? ever troubled by the limited processing capabilities of your computer system? lack of storage to handle the data? fear not! because now there exists a solution to all these problems-Google Earth Engine is the answer to all your satellite image processing requirements.  

Google Earth Engine is a cloud computing platform to process various kinds of spatial data, especially remote sensing satellite data. One can now access thousands of satellite imagery with just a few lines of code something unimaginable in the last decade is now possible. Thanks to GEE. 

GEE is the go-to tool for anybody seeking to use remote sensing data because of its powerful cloud data processing and its free access and availability of a vast number of datasets. Moreover, there is excellent documentation for one seeking to learn how to use it. With just the basic knowledge of Javascript syntax, one can get started on the platform using javascript API on the google earth engine code editor. There are also several user forums on social media and open access courses where one can find relevant information and help. 

Google Earth Engine Code Editor interface and a simple image classification procedure performed for Betalbatim Village, Salcete Goa showing 5 classics viz. Green: Vegetation, Yellow: Agriculture, Red: Builtup, Blue: Water, White: Bare ground/sand. 

This might seem a bit overwhelming for a newcomer without the knowledge of coding however let me assure you that with each line of successfully executed code your confidence skyrockets. This has been the case with me (a non-programmer). When you realise the potential that this platform holds you will automatically get the motivation to learn.  So if you are somebody who has a desire to find solutions to real-world problems using satellite data on GEE then Introduction to JavaScript for Earth Engine is the place to start with or any basic course in javascript. Once you have a basic knowledge of javascript head over to the GEE documentation to learn how to use this platform. for those who already have a programming background, you can try completing the exercises from this free course material End-to-End Google Earth Engine (Full Course Material). 

Happy learning.

Thank you. 

Cool things one can do with QGIS: Animated Tracks

QGIS is one of the fastest developing and widely used open source GIS platform out there. It offers some really cool GIS capabilities. One of the cool things to do is to create animated track of your awesome adventures.  I was able to log my bike ride track using an app on the phone, which I later used to create this amazing animation.  

Animated Bike Ride Track

As you can see we wasted some time at several pit stops waiting for our friends to join in and one major halt for snacks and tea before we zig-zag into the mountains at the end of the trip. This animation itself tells us the story of our ride. how cool is this? 


I learnt this QGIS trick courtesy of  Ujaval Gandhi  who has generously shared his high quality QGIS course material for free. 

  

Status of Agricultural Land Utilization in Betalbatim Village.

Betalbatim is a Coastal Village in South Goa with abundant agricultural land lying uncultivated due to various issues, however the current pandemic situation has brought a change and more and more people are taking interest in agriculture due to job losses in other industries. This has created a unique opportunity to strengthen the agricultural sector in the Village. Here we have tried to estimate the total amount of agricultural land available in our village and the amount of land actually brought under cultivation for the last 5 years by analyzing satellite imagery.

With the advent of free availability of very high resolution satellite imagery extending for over a decade on open source platforms such as google earth it is now possible to uncover details about our environment like never before. As a simple use case we will be monitoring the progress of agriculture in our village. 


All the agricultural fields were digitized by geo-referencing the proposed regional plan 2021 for Betalbatim village over the satellite imagery. 

Temporal analysis of high resolution satellite imagery pertaining to the area around Betalbatim was carried out by visual interpretation using image elements such as tone, texture and pattern to identify cultivated fields.

 

5 year Sentinel 2 Satellite timelape of Betalbatim Village

Anybody with an eye for detail will easily notice the changes taking place in agricultural fields in the above satellite time lapse. Scientists use these changes to map the features on the ground besides several other techniques. 

Post harvest changes seen in cultivated fields(whitish tone) whereas uncultivated fields show green tone due to presence of wild grass.  

  

About 144 hectares of land under the jurisdiction of Betalbatim Village Panchayat is cultivable land, of this an estimated 47 hectares is currently cultivated which accounts for only 32% of land available for agriculture. Thus uncultivated  agricultural land accounts for 68%. 

We are now witnessing an agricultural revival of sorts and are expecting the figure of cultivated land in Betalbatim to go up from this year onward, until we achieve 100% utilization of agricultural land .

 To be continued.....