2.3. Process

Start QGIS and open the mapset where you had the flat areas GRASS vector layer: Go to Plugins>GRASS>Open mapset.

Add a grass vector layer

  • Click on the button "add a GRASS vector layer" to open the "Hadley_flat" layer. This layer represents the areas under 3 degrees of slope (the GRASS vector is divided into two layers, a "0 polygon" and a "1 polygon". This last one we should use).

  • This is how the layer looks:

Convert shapefiles to GRASS vector layers

  • Add the zoning (zn117p1.shp) and roads (EOTROADS_ARC_117.shp) SHAPEFILES. Convert them to GRASS vector layers and, in that process, name them "zoning" and "roads". (Go to this module if you don't remember how to do this step). Also note that for displaying purposes, we will use the "hadley_perim" layer (that we also used in the raster module) that represents the perimeter of the town of Hadley.

Displaying the zoning layer by an attribute

  • Right click the zoning layer to bring up the properties. See the image below to help you set up the symbology options.

  • 1. Select "Unique Value" as legend type.

  • 2. Select "ZONECODE" as the classification field (this field has the zoning codes, defining the zoning for each polygon: comercial, residential, industrial, etc. We know this after reading the metadata for the layer).

  • 3. Select a value in the right colum (those are all the different zoning codes) at a time and

  • 4. assign a different color to each zoning code.

 Note: avoid the color yellow, as that is the default "selection" color in QGIS.

Extracting the comercial polygons

Since we want only areas that are zoned for commercial (i.e. retail) areas, we need to find a way to select only that zone from our five possiblities. This is done by making a query.