Postgraduate - UnitAPG5258 - Geographical information systems (GIS) for environmental science

This unit entry is for students who completed this unit in 2015 only. For students planning to study the unit, please refer to the unit indexes in the the current edition of the Handbook. If you have any queries contact the managing faculty for your course or area of study.

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6 points, SCA Band 2, 0.125 EFTSL

Refer to the specific census and withdrawal dates for the semester(s) in which this unit is offered.

Level	Postgraduate
Faculty	Faculty of Science
Organisational Unit	School of Earth, Atmosphere and Environment
Offered	Clayton First semester 2015 (Flexible)
Coordinator(s)	Dr Xuan Zhu

Synopsis

The unit provides a practical introduction to the principles, techniques and applications in GIS for environmental problem solving and decision making. It covers a wide range of topics including general nature of spatial data, spatial data quality, georeferencing, raster and vector approaches, spatial data management, spatial analysis, spatial modelling, spatial visualisation, terrain analysis, and GIS applications in land use analysis, hydrology, ecology, geoscience, environmental policy and decision analysis.

Outcomes

Upon successful completion, students will be able to:

Understand the fundamental principles of GIS;
Comprehend the nature of spatial data and their importance in environmental science
Identify environmental problems that can be solved with GIS;
Grasp basic GIS skills;
Demonstrate a high level of skills in the use of GIS software (ArcGIS);
Design GIS-based solutions to environmental problems.

Assessment

Within semester assessment: 75%
Exam: 25%

Workload requirements

Minimum total expected workload to achieve the learning outcomes for this unit is 144 hours per semester typically comprising a mixture of scheduled learning activities and independent study. A unit requires on average three/four hours of scheduled activities per week. Scheduled activities may include a combination of teacher directed learning, peer directed learning and online engagement.

Chief examiner(s)

Dr Xuan Zhu

This unit applies to the following area(s) of study

Environmental management and sustainability

Prohibitions

ATS3259, APG4758