In this part we visualize and study the planet in different ways: geopolitical, geographic regions, topography, eco regions and biomes. These important features enable you to better understand plan your explorations across different geographies and eco systems. We focus on Central and Southeast Asia. We use GIS data from below sources to create insightful maps of the planet:
- Natural Earth (naturalearthdata.com) provides global vector data for both cultural (human) and physical (natural) features.
- NASA EarthData (earthdata.nasa.gov) provides global DEM, digitial elevation model data to visualize topography
- Resolve Ecoregions (ecoregions.world) provides natural boundaries on earth representing distinct geography, vegetation, and natural communities. Ecoregions are formed by biotic and abiotic conditions: geology, landforms, soils, vegetation, land use, wildlife, climate, and hydrology
Click here to view the entire GIS series.
Contents
- Natural Earth
- NASA Earth Data
- Resolve Eco Regions & Biomes
- Geo Political
- Geographic Features
- Major Rivers
- Topography
- Biomes & eco regions
Natural Earth
Natural Earth provides an excellent data set to create custom maps for cultural (people) and physical (natural) vector features at different resolutions. Download 10 min (1 arcmin = 1 mile) below data-sets and import in QGIS:
- Natural Earth I
- Shaded Relief Basic
- Countries
- States & Provinces
- Populated Places
- Rivers and Lakes Centerlines
- Physical Region Features
Earth Data
The Earth Science Data Systems (ESDS) Program provides open access to NASA’s archive of Earth science data, empowering researchers and decision makers to better understand and protect our home planet. We will be using DEM (Digital Elevation Model) data required to understand topography and hydrology of the planet. You can download 30sec (900m) resolution DEM data from here.
Resolve Eco Regions & Biomes
Imagine what a map of the Earth would look like using natural rather than political boundaries. The new 2017 map offers a depiction of the 846 ecoregions (across 15 biomes) that represent our living planet. Ecoregions are ecosystems of regional extent. These are color coded on this map to highlight their distribution and the biological diversity they represent. A biome is a large geographic area with a specific climate, vegetation and animal life. Download the data set over here.
Map Layers
Import the 7 Natural Earth and 1 EarthData data sets in QGIS. This results in 8 layers – 5 vector and 3 raster layers. Let’s render and combine these to create unique insightful views on the Himalayas. I am looking at the Himalayas at 1:9 million scale extending from Arunachal in Southeast to Kyrgyzstan in the Northwest covering parts of Central and Southeast Asia. The NE1_HR_LC Natural Earth 1 layer is a satellite-derived land cover presented with a light, natural palette as shown above.
Geopolitical
Enable the Countries and States & Provinces layers to create a geo-political map. Render both polygon layers as simple fill with no brush to just show the boundaries and label them with name. You can also enable the populated places layer to show the major towns across this region.
Geographic Features
A more interesting to view the Earth is to visualize major geographic features. The Natural Earth Physical Region Features is derived from Patterson’s Physical Map of the World showing 1047 major geographical features in 22 major classes like Mountain Ranges, Deserts, Plateaus, Basins, etc.
Render this layer Categorized based on the “FEATURECLAS” attribute. Click Classify to automatically assign different colors to reach class. Choose 20% opacity for this layer not to hide the underlying layers. Hide following classes which would otherwise overlap other important ones: Basin, Continent, Pen/cape.
Enable the SR_HR Shaded Relief map to add hill shading creating a topographic base map. We now get a comprehensive view of the region showing major geographic features:
Mountain Ranges
- Indian Himalayas stretching from Kashmir to Arunachal
- Siwalik hills covering the foothills of Nepal and Kumaon
- Khasi and Naga hills in Northeast
- Karakoram covering China and Ladakh
- Hindu Kush covering Afghanistan and North Pakistan
- Salt Range in Punjab province of Pakistan
- Pamirs in Tajikistan and China
- Tian Shan in Kyrgyzstan and China
Deserts
- Punjab desert
- Thar desert
- Taklimankan desert
- Gobi desert
We can zoom out to view the major geographic features across the whole of Asia:
Major Rivers
Enable the Natural Earth Rivers & Lakes Centerlines map to view the major rivers carrying monsoon rain, snow and glacial melt from these mountain ranges:
- Indus draining the Hindu Kush/Karakoram originating from the Tibet plateau and flowing through Ladakh, Pakistan
- Jhelum draining Salt Range originating from Kashmir
- Chenab/Ravi/Beas/Sutlej draining the Western Indian Himalayas flowing Southwest in the desert of Punjab. Sutlej originates from the Tibet plateau
- Yamuna/Ganges/Ghagara/Gandak/Sapt draining high ranges of the Himalayas in Uttarakhand and Nepal flowing East into the Ganges plains
- Brahmaputra draining the Eastern Himalayas in Arunachal and Bhutan flowing into the Ganges plains
- Pamir/Panj draining the Pamir mountains flowing West along the border of Tajikistan and Afghanistan
- Narayn draining the Tian Shan mountains flowing West in Kyrgyzstan
- Toxkan/Aksu draining the Tian Shan flowing East in China
- Yarkant draining the Karakoram flowing Northeast in China
Topography
Enable the 30s (900m) resolution DEM raster layer to view satellite Digital Elevation Model data. The layer contains elevation data shown in grayscale range between -400 (Dead Sea) and +8420m (Mt. Everest). Lower regions/valleys are darker and higher regions/mountain ranges lighter.
Let’s visualize this elevation data a bit more comprehensively. Render using a Singleband pseudocolor, using a Turbo color ramp. Discrete interpolation and 15 equal intervals 500m steps from 0 to 7000m and above
This gives a more comprehensive overview of the elevation range of the region: low areas in blue, high mountains in orange/red and mid-ranges in green/yellow. Rivers shown in white for better contrast.
Zoom into specific regions to clearly see the topography. High ranges and ridgelines (orange, red), rivers flowing through the low valleys (blue) and mid-ranges (green, yellow):
Use a transparent dash pattern to view the mountain ranges on top of this elevation map shown with 70% transparency for better contrast. This gives a clear view on the different elevations within these different ranges. Tian Shan being much lower overall compared to say the Karakoram.
Biomes & Eco Regions
Let’s now take a closer look at the Biomes and Eco Regions of our planet. There are 846 ecoregions (across 15 biomes) that represent our living planet. Ecoregions are ecosystems of regional extent each representing a biological diversity. A biome is a large geographic area with a specific climate, vegetation and animal life. Here s the eco-regions data set downloaded from ecoregions.world:
Render this layer categorized as per “BIOME_NAME” to color the eco-regions as per 15 biomes they belong to reusing standard colors as used on ecoregions.world.
Showing the country boundaries to add geopolitical context. We now get a clear understanding of the different biomes across the region. Show/Hide individual regions to clearly see their extent:
- Large deserts and xeric shrublands in the Xinjang region of China, Punjab/Pakistan and Rajastan/India
- Montane grasslands & shrublands in the Tibetan plateau, Tian Sian in Kyrgyzstan and China, Pamirs in Tajikistan, Hindu Kush in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Ladakh
- Temperate conifer forests in the high-range Himalayas
- Temperate broadleaf & mixed forests in the mid-range Himalayas
- Tropical and subtropical coniferous forests in the Himalayan foothills
- Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests in Ganges plains
- Temperate grasslands and savannas in mid range Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan
- Rock and Ice on the highest ranges
We can overlay the Geographic features with transparent dash and look at smaller 1:2M scale to clearly see the individual eco-regions across different mountain ranges to better understand their ecosystems, climate, vegetation and animal life:
Choose the Identify Features tool in QGIS to get details on individual eco regions and their biome:
You can read more about each eco-region on the ecoregions.world website:
Read more on its climate, vegetation and animal life on the same website:
Overlaying waymarked hiking trails over the eco-regions over a topographic base layer allows you to understand how a certain hiking traverse goes across different eco systems and vegetations:
