Z_GIS Invited to Kazakh National University, Almaty

Dr. Shahnawaz from the Department of Geoinformatics - Z_GIS, University of Salzburg, Austria was invited to the Faculty of Geography and Environmental Sciences, Al-Farabi Kazakh National University (KazNU) from December 2022 to January 2023. This academic invitation was extended within the framework of international cooperation program started in 2005 for strengthening the «Geospatial Environmental Management» educational program at KazNU. Prof. Gulnara Nyussupova, head of the ‘Department of Geography, Land Management and Cadaster’ at KazNU utilised this visit for organising a department level workshop.

The bachelor, master and doctoral level students from the department appreciated the opportunity of participating in an intensive workshop covering various aspects of academic writing as well as Geographical Information Science and Systems. The workshop focused on processing and analyses of satellite generated atmospheric and climatic datasets. The hands-on practical part was based on ESRI ArcGIS software which provided extensive exposure to a range of methods and tools for geospatial analyses. The participants learned to extract spatial and temporal patterns of various atmospheric and climatic phenomena for assessing the causes and effects of climate change. They also practiced geospatial modelling for generating future scenarios and gave individual presentations of the learning outcomes at the completion of the workshop.

The participants appreciated this workshop as an excellent opportunity to gain new knowledge, enhance practical experience and improve professional skills as well as intensive work discussions with Dr. Shahnawaz.