GEOSTAT courses

About

GEOSTAT focuses on important aspects of statistical analysis of spatial and spatio-temporal data using open source / free GIS tools: R, SAGA GIS, GRASS GIS, FWTools, Google Earth and similar. The course participants learn how to move data back and forth between the different environments; how to produce scripts and automate analysis. We welcome also R beginners and users needing refresh courses in programming, however, some basic knowledge of statistics and geocomputing is a prerequisite to follow the lectures. We also promote topics such as: web-based computing, WPS client-server environments, 3D and 4D geostatistics, combining R+SAGA/GRASS.
This is a 5-day course with two parallel sessions, which means that there are a total of 7 full-day blocks (one joint block and three days with parallel sessions) of lectures; the last day of the summer school participants can present their research problems and ask for feedback from the whole summer school. All interested applicants are asked to sign-up for the course blocks and help us shape the blocks so they fit their expectations.

Targeted audience: PhD students and young researchers (maximum 35 participants); R-sig-geo, GRASS and SAGA mailing lists. See also: rankings for Landau

Period:

24-31 July 2011 (from sunday to sunday)

Download course videos

The GEOSTAT 2011 summer school was broadcasted live (via UStream). The streams have been edited and uploaded to the internet archive and this allows anybody who missed out on the summer school to freely follow and download all lectures.

Daily programme

• Day 0 (24 July) - arrival and informal dinner (18:30 university) <- please sign-up!
• Day 1 (25 July) - Conference room C1-1
  • 9:00-9:30 Welcome note (Ralf Schaefer)  
  • 9:30-10:30 GEOSTAT course overview (Tom Hengl)  
  • 11:00-12:30 Introduction to representing spatial objects in R (Roger Bivand; slides, demo data and script)  
  • 12:30-14:00 lunch break (C3 - 240)
  • 14:00-15:30 News and updates (GRASS GIS; Markus Neteler and Markus Metz; slides)  
  • 15:30-16:00 coffee break
  • 16:00-17:00 News and updates (SAGA GIS)
  • 17:30-18:00 Software installation (C3 - 140 / C3 - 148)
  • 18:00-20:00 Baby-steps in software
• Day 2 (26 July) - (parallel sessions)
  • Spatial and temporal data representations (C3 - 140, Stream 1)
  • SAGA GIS Tutorial (C3 - 148, Stream 2)
  • 20:00 GEOSTAT Band evening (Ruhmbar)
• Day 3 (27 July) - (parallel sessions)
  • Spatio-temporal variogram models - how to fit them, how to use them (C3 - 140, Stream 1)
  • Visualization and analysis of geo-data (hosted on a server)  (C3 - 148, Stream 2)
• Day 4 (28 July) - (parallel sessions)
  • Optimisation of Spatial Sampling Designs (C3 - 140, Stream 1)
  • Introduction to GRASS GIS  (C3 - 148, Stream 2)
  • 18:00 Zoo visit (optional)
  • 19:00 Gala Dinner (Pythels restaurant, near the zoo)
• Day 5 open day (29 July) - (selected topics)
  • 9:00-12:30 Spatial Interpolation Comparison (C3 - 140, Stream 1)
  • 9:00-12:30 GRASS GIS workshop (C3 - 148, Stream 2)
  • 14:00-16:30 Spatial uncertainty propagation and spatial stochastic simulation (C3 - 140, Stream 1) 
  • 14:00-16:30 GRASS / SAGA / PostGIS workshop (C3 - 148, Stream 2)
  • 17:30 - 19:00 Sport event (soccer or frisbee)
• Day 6 (30 July) - Excursion <- please sign-up!
• Day 7 (31 July) - departures

Location (and main sponsor):

Fortstrasse 7, D-76829 Landau, Institute of Environmental Science, University of Koblenz-Landau (how to arrive)

Facilities: two multimedia classrooms with 20-30 seats, LCD projectors, Internet (WLAN);

Local organizers:

Ralf B. Schäfer (uni-landau.de), Tomislav Hengl (wur.nl)

Invited lecturers:

Roger Bivand (nhh.no), Edzer Pebesma (uni-muenster.de), Gerard Heuvelink (wur.nl), Markus Neteler (iasma.it), Jan Wehberg (geowiss.uni-hamburg.de), Markus Metz (uni-ulm.de), Dylan Beaudette (USDA-NRCS).

Topics:

• Spatial and temporal data representations
• Open Source Tools for Soil (and Environmental) Scientists
• Introduction to GRASS GIS
• SAGA GIS Tutorial
• Spatio-temporal variogram models - how to fit them, how to use them
• Optimisation of Spatial Sampling Designs
• Visualization and analysis of live data (MySQL, PostGIS, Google Earth)

Registration:

The registration is now closed.

Selection of candidates:

The selection processes has been designed based on the principle of solidarity. The final ranking number is an average ranking of the following four criteria:

• Publication record derived as square root of number of publications multiplied by total citations.
• Contributions to the open source software community derived as the average ranking of the R-sig-geo traffic and OS software contributions.
• Distance to the venue (participants more distant from the venue get higher ranking).
• Time of application.

The rankings for Landau are available at http://geostat-course.org/rankings_Landau.

Course fees:

Course fees include registration fees (handouts, website and multimedia), coffee breaks, 5 lunch tickets, 1 ticket for gala dinner and complete costs of excursion on Saturday. The course fees are 240 EUR this year. A number of participants from ODA countries (i.e. with a permanent residence in some of the ODA listed countries) will be able to participate for free thanks to our sponsors (below). This summer school will be hosted by the Institute of Environmental Science, University of Koblenz-Landau. All lecturers are volunteers and receive no per diem nor financial benefits. See also the refunding policy.

Sponsored by:

Travel and accommodation:

Landau is is easy accessible via train from major German airports (Frankfurt Airport, Stuttgart Airport etc.) within 1-2 hours. The university is located close to the town centre with many affordable opportunities for accommodation. A single room and shared double room in a budget hotel cost 175 and 245 EUR per person for the whole summer school (7 nights, including breakfast), respectively. However, this option is fully booked now. Other options include a single hotel room starting at 378 EUR. A cheaper option would be to share a double room in this hotel - please contact us if you need help with this (schaefer-ralf@uni-landau.de).