Creative Workflows Using QGIS and SQL
Background
The Wisconsin General Land Office Survey Records (WIGLOSR) database contains digitized records from the original land survey of Wisconsin. As surveyors subdivided land and placed posts marking corners, they also recorded the diameter, species, and distance from corner of two to four trees that bore witness to the corner. Today, we can use those witness tree records to get a picture of the landscape looked like in the mid to late 1800s. For more background on the WIGLOSR database and its schema or to download the database and documentation, head over to the SCO GLO page.
Exercise 1
In exercise one you will manually create your tree map in QGIS using a plethora of tools.
Exercise 2
In exercise two you will use SQL and PostGIS to quickly and easily create a tree map.
Final Remarks
You survived! Hopefully you learned a bit about the original land survey of Wisconsin and have a nice map to share. At the very least you will have been introduced to a fair number of advanced features in QGIS and dabbled in a bit of SQL.
To find out more about the original land survey in Wisconsin head to the GLO page. Explore other Wisconsin spatial datasets on the data page. And finally, if you have any questions, you can find our contact information on the SCO website.