Working with Geospatial Data in R

Geospatial data are fundamental in many fields of science. R, while far from being a user-friendly GIS platform, has become increasingly capable of managing, processing, and analyzing spatial data. In this workshop, we will go over the fundamentals of working with spatial data in R. We look at the most common data classes used to store vector and raster data, and learn how to manipulate them. We will review packages that are good for importing and exporting spatial data from common file formats, and demonstrate how to grab spatial data from online geodatabases, reproject data between coordinate reference systems, select features via attributes and spatial relationships, convert between vector and raster, do basic geoprocessing operations such as buffers and intersections, and perform simple raster operations such as map algebra and distance surfaces.

The first half of the workshop will be a presentation, while the second half will be a hands-on exercise. To complete the hands-on exercise, participants should bring laptops and have R installed. A list of the needed R packages will be emailed to participants before the workshop.