Tutorials

Nice datasets and tools on spatial stuff

Join me as I dive into the chaotic jungle of open data, GIS wizardry, and the satisfying tutorials that kept me (barely) sane during my researcher struggles!

Open spatial data

Natural earth: Free vector and raster maps of cultural and physical data for the whole world. I use the natural earth data mainly to get administrative boundaries of countries, states or provinces. They also have coarse resolution rivers and lakes.
Open topography: Global and regional elevetion models, and so much more! Amazing DEM at a global and regional scale. They also have bulk download available if you register for free! 😎
Landsat ready data Spatially and temporally consistent input for land cover mapping and change detection at global to local scales

Tools

Landscape ecology

I used Gnarly Landscape Utilities to create resistance surfaces for my master’s thesis. In the webpage you can download the tool and also tutorials provided by circuitscape.
The one and only Linkage mapper for delimiting corridors.
Circuitscape and omniscape for modeling functional connectivity based on circuit theory
Conefor and Makurhini to model landscape conenctivity based on graph theory
Landscape metrics Incredibly useful R package to calculate landscape metrics

Open datasets

Avonet: Functional trait data for all birds, including six ecological variables, eleven continuous morphological traits, and information on range size and location.