ArcGIS Pro Food Security Mapping and Analysis Training Course

Course overview

Food-security teams must turn fragmented data on markets, rainfall, crop production, displacement, nutrition and access constraints into defensible geographic evidence. ArcGIS Pro provides the analytical environment to connect these datasets, but results can be misleading when indicators are mapped at incompatible administrative levels, classified poorly, or interpreted without acknowledging data quality and uncertainty. This course equips practitioners to build map products and spatial analyses that support targeting, early warning, needs assessments and programme monitoring.

Participants work in ArcGIS Pro to prepare humanitarian and development datasets; join household, market and administrative data; create food-security indicators; analyse travel time and access to services or markets; and identify locations where multiple risk factors overlap. The course covers raster analysis for rainfall and vegetation conditions, vector workflows for administrative and survey data, hotspot and overlay methods, map design, and reproducible geoprocessing. Participants learn to select appropriate geographic units, document assumptions, apply meaningful classifications, and communicate analytical limits alongside findings.

Delivery combines instructor demonstrations with guided ArcGIS Pro labs based on a food-security response scenario. Each participant builds a project geodatabase, processes supplied datasets, and develops an area-prioritisation model using weighted overlay and access analysis. By the final day, participants produce a documented food-security situation map pack and an ArcGIS Pro project containing source data references, geoprocessing history, priority-area outputs and recommendations suitable for a programme, assessment or coordination briefing.

The course is designed for GIS practitioners and analysts working with NGOs, UN agencies, government food-security units, donors and implementing partners. It is equally relevant to professionals who support IPC-style analysis, livelihoods programming, cash and market interventions, nutrition surveillance, resilience planning or emergency response targeting.

Course objectives

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Build an ArcGIS Pro project geodatabase for food-security indicators, boundaries, facilities, markets and raster evidence
• Prepare and join household survey, market-price and administrative datasets using field mapping, data cleaning and spatial joins
• Calculate food-security indicator fields and normalize values for comparison across geographic areas
• Analyse rainfall and vegetation-condition rasters with ArcGIS Spatial Analyst tools and zonal statistics
• Model travel time to markets, health facilities or distribution points using cost distance and least-cost path methods
• Create weighted-overlay priority surfaces that combine hazard, access, livelihood and vulnerability criteria
• Identify statistically significant clusters of high food-security risk using hotspot analysis
• Produce a documented food-security map pack and ArcGIS Pro project for operational decision-making

Benefits of attending

Target competencies

Who should attend

• GIS Officers — who prepare operational maps and spatial evidence for humanitarian or development programmes
• Food Security Analysts — who need to combine market, livelihoods, production and household data geographically
• Early Warning Officers — who monitor rainfall, vegetation, prices and access conditions across affected areas
• MEAL Specialists — who analyse programme coverage, beneficiary data and geographic gaps
• Cash and Markets Advisers — who assess market access, price patterns and potential intervention locations
• Government Planning and Disaster Management Officers — who target resilience, relief and social-protection resources by area

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should be comfortable with core GIS concepts, including vector and raster data, attribute tables, coordinate systems, layers and basic map production. Prior hands-on experience opening projects, symbolizing layers and running simple geoprocessing tools in ArcGIS Pro is expected; this is not a first-time GIS course. Familiarity with food-security concepts such as livelihoods, market access, vulnerability, coping strategies, rainfall performance or administrative reporting units is helpful. Participants do not need programming, advanced statistics, remote-sensing expertise, or prior experience with IPC analysis. Sample humanitarian datasets are supplied for all practical work.

Training methodology

The instructor uses a single food-security response scenario to connect each ArcGIS Pro technique to an operational question: where conditions are worsening, which communities face access barriers, and where support should be prioritised. Short demonstrations are followed by individual labs using supplied survey, market, rainfall, vegetation and boundary data. Participants compare analytical choices in small groups, including weights, thresholds and map classifications, then defend their prioritisation logic. The final workshop converts each participant’s analysis into a map pack, documented workflow and practical application plan for their own organisation.

Course outline

Day 1: Food-security data foundations in ArcGIS Pro

• Food-security analytical questions for targeting, early warning and programme monitoring
• ArcGIS Pro project structure, catalog pane and project geodatabases
• Administrative boundaries, settlement gazetteers and humanitarian reference data
• Vector and raster data models for food-security evidence
• Coordinate systems, transformations and area-based measurement risks
• Attribute-table cleaning, field mapping and coded-value domains
• Joining household, market-price and administrative datasets to map layers

Workshop: Participants build a project geodatabase and create a clean district-level food-security baseline layer from supplied household, market and boundary data.

Day 2: Indicators, climate evidence and area comparison

• Selecting geographic units and denominators for food-security indicators
• Calculating prevalence, rate, index and anomaly fields with Field Calculator
• Normalization and directionality of vulnerability and resilience indicators
• Classification methods for choropleth maps, including quantiles, natural breaks and fixed thresholds
• Raster clipping, resampling and projection for rainfall and vegetation datasets
• Zonal Statistics as Table for summarising raster conditions by administrative area
• Interpreting seasonal rainfall and vegetation anomalies alongside household evidence

Workshop: Participants calculate district indicators, derive rainfall and vegetation summaries, and produce a comparative situation map with an interpretation note.

Day 3: Access and market connectivity analysis

• Preparing road, river, land-cover and elevation inputs for accessibility modelling
• Assigning travel-speed and friction values to land-cover and road classes
• Euclidean Distance and Cost Distance for market and service access
• Cost Path and least-cost routes for identifying feasible travel corridors
• Service-area analysis with ArcGIS Network Analyst
• Spatial joins for linking settlements to nearest markets and facilities
• Mapping access gaps for cash, food-distribution and nutrition-service planning

Workshop: Participants create a travel-time surface and identify settlements beyond an agreed market-access threshold for a response-planning brief.

Day 4: Risk prioritisation and spatial pattern analysis

• Designing a multi-criteria food-security prioritisation framework
• Reclassify and Raster Calculator for common scoring scales
• Weighted Overlay tool configuration and sensitivity testing
• Overlaying displacement, production, market and access constraints
• Optimized Hot Spot Analysis for clusters of elevated risk
• Spatial aggregation, the modifiable areal unit problem and ecological fallacy
• Documenting assumptions, uncertainty and limitations in priority-area analysis

Workshop: Participants build and test a weighted-overlay model, then identify priority clusters and record the rationale for their selected criteria and weights.

Day 5: Decision-ready food-security map products

• Cartographic hierarchy for food-security situation and priority maps
• Symbology, labels and colour choices for risk and severity communication
• Layout design for operational briefs, assessment reports and donor products
• Map series generation for district or subdistrict reporting
• Metadata, source citation and geoprocessing history in ArcGIS Pro
• Exporting print-ready PDF maps and sharing web-ready outputs through ArcGIS Online
• Quality assurance checks for geography, indicators, legends and analytical claims

Workshop: Participants complete a decision-ready map pack and present their priority-area findings, caveats and recommended operational actions to a simulated response review panel.

Tools & standards covered

ArcGIS Pro, ArcGIS Spatial Analyst, ArcGIS Network Analyst, Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC)

A typical training day

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in the East Africa Time zone, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

How you can take this course

Certification

Participants who complete the full five days receive the Skillset Development Certificate of Completion, stating the course title, course code, dates and delivery format — suitable for professional-development records and employer reimbursement.

Frequently asked questions