Data structure and interrogation – Kimberley

Lets start by loading some data. In the data for this tutorial find the data you have downloaded in the Tenure file. Skip to the video.

  1. Double click on the layers Kimberley_Tenure.shp and KimberleyTopo250k.ecw in the browser window.
  2. These two layers will appear in the Layers window.
  3. You can also see them displayed in the map window.
  4. You can turn on and off each layer by selecting and deselecting the tick boxes in the layers window.

The Protected_Areas.shp file is vector data and KimberleyTopo250k.ecw is raster data.

Zoom into the map using the zoom tool:

As you get very close you will see pixels appearing in the Topographic map image. This is raster data. On the left of the image below the red block is the tenure ‘vector’ data.

Each vector data feature contains information about ‘attributes’ of that feature. In the case of the tenure data each feature is a bit of land with information about who owns it and how its managed. You can view information about each parcel of land using the iformation tool.

Use this tool to select (click on) some polygons to show their attributes.

Explore the attributes for all the protected areas by opening the attribute table.

We can also select polygons based on specific attributes using the “Select Features by Value’ tool:

Try selecting all the indigenous protected areas as shown below.

Finally select Unngu using the Name attribute.

You can save Unnguu area as a new file. Right-click on the protected area layer in the browser window and select ‘Save Selected Features as’.

A video of the processes shown above.

Now you have a basic idea of GIS data the following exercises look at fire information.