QGIS for BNG (combined live & self led course)

Join this blend of independent learning and tutor support sessions throughout a day to build on your existing QGIS skills, to learn how to use the software to carry out a BNG assessment.

Conducting a BNG assessment is now mandatory for most new developments. It is a new area of work and one that ecologists, particularly consultants, are having to adopt. Conducting these assessments requires specialist technical skills, and can be carried out using the freely available, open-source mapping software, QGIS.

The course is suitable for delegates familiar with the QGIS interface who have been using the product for at least three months. Ideally they will have attended an introductory level QGIS course. The course will be delivered online (via our online learning system and zoom), along with some tutor led sessions throughout the day using a range of tried and tested techniques including presentations, demonstrations, individual exercises and case studies.

The course builds on delegates QGIS skills, and equips them with the specific skills needed to carry out a BNG assessment. It covers how to integrate pre-development habitat data, that they would have collected via field survey, with proposed development data, often provided by a (landscape) architect. The course will cover working with CAD data in QGIS, which is very often needed in a BNG assessment. It will also enable delegates to confidently use NE’s BNG QGIS project, together with NE’s Import to BNG Metric Excel tool.

The course will be delivered using CIEEM’s Moodle Learning Management Platform and a blend of tutor sessions throughout the day, to keep you on track. The day will start with a live session with the tutor at 09:30. You will be introduced, how the day will run, and the course materials. You will be expected to follow the materials accessed through our Learning Management System independently with further sessions of support from the tutor at 12:30, 14:00 and 16:30. These sessions will be half an hour. By the end of the day you would have completed the course.

Ecological Consultants, Wildlife Trusts, Land Managers, Rangers, Statutory Agency staff, conservation practitioners, students.

Good basic working knowledge of QGIS including the ability to carry out the following operations:

• Create projects from existing vector and raster data
• Symbolise layers
• Digitise points, lines and polygons
• Broad awareness of Biodiversity Net Gain and the NE BNG metric

• Set up a QGIS form for ease of data input in the office or field.
• Integrate a range of datasets commonly used in BNG assessments.
• Geo-reference a raster field survey map for use in QGIS.
• Work with CAD data in QGIS (add, symbolise, re-position, covert to other formats).
• Create pre and proposed development habitat datasets using advanced digitising tools.
• Work with the NE BNG QGIS project, including exporting data to the BNG Metric using NE tools.