GIS for Geotechs Short Course

Colin Mazengarb, Senior Geologist, Mineral Resources Tasmania (MRT)

Empowering geotechnical practitioners with geographic information systems

The Australian Geomechanics Society is offering a new short course that is an introduction to Geographic Information Systems (GIS) with a focus on geotechnical applications.

All geotechnical investigations have significant spatial components and GIS software is an appropriate and powerful tool for bringing diverse data sources together to improve the understanding of ground conditions at all scales. Furthermore, in recent times various Government bodies have undertaken major investments in spatial technology as part of a strategy to provide better access to information for the community, business and public sectors. There is now a large and growing range of spatial information available that is relevant to geotechnical investigations amongst other applications.

In this one day course, attendees bring their own laptops with nominated freeware software preloaded and tested. You will be introduced to the software functionality, cover basic theory and work through a series of exercises with real geotechnical data to develop geotechnical models. By the end of the day, each applicant will be able to open, create and recycle GIS projects, discover and import data, analyse relationships between data sets and produce maps and cross-sections suitable for reports and presentations.

You will work with LiDAR, an exciting dataset that is revolutionising the understanding of landscapes and sites and use this to create your first 3D model. You will learn how to link to web services that provides layers to add to your projects remotely. You will learn where to obtain and download data from government repositories.

The workshop will be interspersed with examples of projects created by the instructors with opportunities for group discussion. Digital datasets and course notes will be provided.

The course will be led by Colin Mazengarb, an engineering-geologist residing in Hobart with over 20 years GIS experience. Colin will be assisted by invited practitioners.

For further information, please see the registration form and flyer or the dedicated GIS for Geotechs course page.

Engineers Australia members participating in AGS technical sessions can record attendance on their personal CPD logs. Members should refer to Engineers Australia CPD policy for details on CPD types, requirements and auditing guidelines.