The GEOSTAT Summer School is an annual series of Summer Schools organized by R and Open Source (OS) Geographical Information System (GIS) developers and enthusiasts. It targets PhD students and researchers in environmental and geographical sciences. The summer school helps researchers to be able to analyze spatial and spatio-temporal data in R. It aims at promoting various aspects of statistical analysis of environmental, urban and such data using free GIS languages and tools such as R, Python, GRASS GIS, QGIS, SAGA GIS and others. Paul Omonge learnt various statistical packages for use in R which can be applied to help analyze the hydrological data for his study. The packages will enable him to effectively and simply present the complex aspects of his PhD study in the form of maps and charts that can be easily understood by the local community in his study area. He will therefore adopt these new and updated geo-statistical methods in R to help analyze his data. The summer school took place at the Institute of Botany of the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague, from 19th to 25th August 2018.
Paul Omonge is a PhD candidate at the Institute of Water Management, Hydrology and Hydraulic Engineering, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna (BOKU). He was nominated for his PhD within the APPEAR project CapNex that aims at capacity building on the water-energy-food security Nexus through research and training in Kenya and Uganda. His research focusses on forecasting water availability and use amid competing socio-economic and climatic stress. He previously lectured at the department of Biosystems and Environmental Engineering, Technical University of Kenya. He holds a Master’s degree in Environmental Sciences from Kenyatta University. He has worked as a conservation officer for Nature Kenya as well as an Assistant Researcher in the Maasai-Mara basin Hydrological Project (MaMa-Hydro) funded by KEF, at Kenyatta University. Paul has won several awards; the Joke-Waller Hunter Young Environmental leader award and the Rufford Small Grants (RSG) for Nature. The RSG enabled him to implement an indigenous knowledge-based approach to the conservation of the Nyangores catchment of the upper Mara River basin where he did his MSc Studies.