Overview

There is a lot of information you can look at prior to heading out on site, to provide you with a better understanding of your catchment, target your field surveys and identify potential restoration measures. This one-day course will help you find, collate, display and interpret existing data for your river restoration projects or catchment strategy. Existing data on flood risk, geology, terrain, land use etc. provide evidence and justification for projects and help target field work and restoration action. As part of the course, we will discuss the data required to achieve project priorities, we will show you how to find, download and display available datasets, and help you analyse them and produce meaningful outputs. We will use a case study example to practice and demonstrate how to apply a desktop assessment to pressure and impact evaluation for building a river restoration strategy. This course is open to anybody with a basic knowledge in river restoration and hydromorphology. Although not required, prior attendance of the Introduction to Hydromorphology (Level 1) course or the Developing a Catchment-wide restoration plan course can be beneficial. No prior knowledge of GIS or data analysis techniques is required for the course.