“In this module we give you a detailed walk through of using PostgreSQL and PostGIS as the data store and a spatial analysis environment for QGIS.”

Except from intro: In legacy first-generation GIS implementations, all spatial data was stored in flat files and special GIS software was required to interpret and manipulate the data. These first-generation management systems were designed to meet the needs of users where all required data is within the user’s organizational domain. They are proprietary, self-contained systems specifically built for handling spatial data.

Second-generation spatial systems store some data in relational databases (usually the “attribute” or non-spatial parts) but still lack the flexibility afforded with direct integration.

True spatial databases were born when people started to treat spatial features as first class database objects.

Spatial databases fully integrate spatial data with an object relational database. The orientation changed from GIS-centric to database-centric.

This workshop is written by Mayra Zurbaran, Mark Leslie, Paul Ramsey. You can find the complete workshop along with material sources on the Workshop GitHub Page.

The workshop data and PDF can be fetched here