This is how I programmatically plot discrete raster data (e.g. a land cover map) using Python. Here’s a Jupyter Notebook demonstrating the plotting steps using land cover data for Taita Taveta County, Kenya as an example. This dataset includes a QGIS style file (QML) which I used to configure the legend. There are probably simpler ways of doing this, so please let me know if you have any suggestions!
Data source
Abera, Temesgen Alemayheu; Vuorinne, Ilja; Munyao, Martha; Pellikka, Petri; Heiskanen, Janne (2021), “Taita Taveta County, Kenya - 2020 Land cover map and reference database”, Mendeley Data, V2, doi: 10.17632/xv24ngy2dz.2.
This data is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC-BY-4.0) License.
Dependencies
The required Python packages are Pandas, rioxarray, Matplotlib, and Numpy.
Additionally, the following packages are used in the demonstration:
- JupyterLab for interactive notebooks
- Requests for downloading data
- Dask for parallel computing (this isn’t really needed for the raster data used in this example, but it’ll be very useful for larger datasets)
Importing libraries and setting up graphical parameters
Import the following libraries:
import multiprocessing
import platform
import os
from zipfile import ZipFile, BadZipFile
from datetime import datetime, timezone
# Windows
if platform.system() == "Windows":
import multiprocessing.popen_spawn_win32
# Linux/OSX
else:
import multiprocessing.popen_spawn_posix
import threading
import xml.etree.ElementTree as ET
import requests
import pandas as pd
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from matplotlib.colors import ListedColormap, LinearSegmentedColormap
import numpy as np
import rioxarray as rxr
from dask.distributed import Client, LocalCluster, Lock
from dask.utils import SerializableLock
Configure Matplotlib parameters to change the plot style:
plt.style.use("seaborn-whitegrid")
plt.rcParams["font.family"] = "Source Sans 3"
plt.rcParams["figure.dpi"] = 150
plt.rcParams["axes.grid"] = False
plt.rcParams["text.color"] = "darkslategrey"
plt.rcParams["axes.labelcolor"] = "darkslategrey"
plt.rcParams["xtick.labelcolor"] = "darkslategrey"
plt.rcParams["ytick.labelcolor"] = "darkslategrey"
plt.rcParams["figure.titleweight"] = "semibold"
plt.rcParams["axes.titleweight"] = "semibold"
plt.rcParams["figure.titlesize"] = "13"
plt.rcParams["axes.titlesize"] = "12"
plt.rcParams["axes.labelsize"] = "10"
Defining paths and downloading data
Define data directories:
DATA_DIR = os.path.join("data", "kenya_land_cover")
ZIP_FILE = DATA_DIR + ".zip"
Download data (which is a ZIP archive) using Requests (alternatively, download the data manually to the data folder in the working directory):
URL = (
"https://prod-dcd-datasets-cache-zipfiles.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/" +
"xv24ngy2dz-2.zip"
)
r = requests.get(URL, stream=True)
os.makedirs("data", exist_ok=True)
if r.status_code == 200:
with open(ZIP_FILE, "wb") as filedl:
for chunk in r.iter_content(chunk_size=1048676):
filedl.write(chunk)
print("Data downloaded:", datetime.now(tz=timezone.utc))
else:
print("\nStatus code:", r.status_code)
To view the list of files in the ZIP archive:
ZipFile(ZIP_FILE).namelist()
This will output the following:
['xv24ngy2dz-2/Data/Land cover map /Landcover-cMfoO1.tif',
'xv24ngy2dz-2/Data/Land cover map /ColorCode-ni1SIo.qml',
'xv24ngy2dz-2/Data/Land cover map /Info-UBC9RP.txt',
'xv24ngy2dz-2/Data/Reference Database for Accuracy Assessment/File.zip',
'xv24ngy2dz-2/Data/Reference Database for Classification/File.zip']
From this list, only the TIF and QML files will be used.
Extract the ZIP archive to DATA_DIR:
try:
z = ZipFile(ZIP_FILE)
z.extractall(DATA_DIR)
except BadZipFile:
print("There were issues with the file", ZIP_FILE)
Define paths to the TIF and QML files:
for i in ZipFile(ZIP_FILE).namelist():
if i.endswith(".tif"):
raster_file = os.path.join(DATA_DIR, i)
elif i.endswith(".qml"):
style_file = os.path.join(DATA_DIR, i)
Reading the raster data
Read the land cover raster data using rioxarray, with Dask for parallel computing1:
with LocalCluster() as cluster, Client(cluster) as client:
landcover = rxr.open_rasterio(
raster_file,
chunks=True,
cache=False,
masked=True,
lock=False,
# lock=Lock("rio-read", client=client) # when too many file handles open
)
landcover.rio.to_raster(
os.path.join(DATA_DIR, "dask_multiworker.tif"),
tiled=True,
lock=Lock("rio", client=client)
)
View the data structure:
landcover
View the resolution, bounds, and CRS of the data:
landcover.rio.resolution()
# (0.00026949458520105445, -0.00026949458520105445)
landcover.rio.bounds()
# (37.583984352, -4.138089356, 39.21927749499999, -2.682818595914306)
landcover.rio.crs
# CRS.from_epsg(4326)
Processing the data
Get the unique value count for the raster data (each value represents a land cover type):
# get unique value count for the raster
uniquevals = pd.DataFrame(np.unique(landcover, return_counts=True)).transpose()
# assign column names
uniquevals.columns = ["value", "count"]
# drop row(s) with NaN
uniquevals.dropna(inplace=True)
# convert value column to string (this is required for merging later)
uniquevals["value"] = uniquevals["value"].astype(int).astype(str)
# view the unique values data frame
uniquevals
| value | count | |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | 1 | 16621.0 |
| 1 | 2 | 33046.0 |
| 2 | 3 | 33286.0 |
| 3 | 4 | 981030.0 |
| 4 | 5 | 9219689.0 |
| 5 | 6 | 7721553.0 |
| 6 | 7 | 124588.0 |
| 7 | 8 | 871990.0 |
| 8 | 9 | 75661.0 |
| 9 | 10 | 10556.0 |
| 10 | 11 | 34500.0 |
| 11 | 12 | 73355.0 |
| 12 | 13 | 89317.0 |
| 13 | 14 | 2582.0 |
Read the QGIS style file (QML) containing the legend entries and extract the colour palette:
tree = ET.parse(style_file)
root = tree.getroot()
# extract colour palette
pal = {}
for palette in root.iter("paletteEntry"):
pal[palette.attrib["value"]] = palette.attrib
# generate data frame from palette dictionary
legend = pd.DataFrame.from_dict(pal).transpose()
legend = pd.DataFrame(legend)
# drop alpha column
legend.drop(columns="alpha", inplace=True)
# convert value column to string (this is required for merging later)
legend["value"] = legend["value"].astype(str)
# view the palette data frame
legend
| value | label | color | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | Montane forest | #6ed277 |
| 2 | 2 | Plantation forest | #4d7619 |
| 3 | 3 | Riverine forest | #27f90c |
| 4 | 4 | Thicket | #fd8e07 |
| 5 | 5 | Shrubland | #fac597 |
| 6 | 6 | Grassland | #aaec85 |
| 7 | 7 | Agroforestry | #4df3ef |
| 8 | 8 | Cropland | #f9ed25 |
| 9 | 9 | Sisal | #840bfe |
| 10 | 10 | Builtup | #833023 |
| 11 | 11 | Waterbody | #3630ee |
| 12 | 12 | Wetland | #4dc4f3 |
| 13 | 13 | Baresoil | #ee15ca |
| 14 | 14 | Barerock | #132e1e |
Merge the unique values data frame with the legend and calculate percentages based on the count:
uniquevals = uniquevals.merge(legend, on="value")
# calculate percentage based on count
uniquevals["percentage"] = (
uniquevals["count"] / uniquevals["count"].sum() * 100
)
uniquevals["percentage"] = uniquevals["percentage"].astype(int)
# sort by count
uniquevals.sort_values("count", ascending=False, inplace=True)
# view the data frame
uniquevals
| value | count | label | color | percentage | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | 5 | 9219689.0 | Shrubland | #fac597 | 47 |
| 5 | 6 | 7721553.0 | Grassland | #aaec85 | 40 |
| 3 | 4 | 981030.0 | Thicket | #fd8e07 | 5 |
| 7 | 8 | 871990.0 | Cropland | #f9ed25 | 4 |
| 6 | 7 | 124588.0 | Agroforestry | #4df3ef | 0 |
| 12 | 13 | 89317.0 | Baresoil | #ee15ca | 0 |
| 8 | 9 | 75661.0 | Sisal | #840bfe | 0 |
| 11 | 12 | 73355.0 | Wetland | #4dc4f3 | 0 |
| 10 | 11 | 34500.0 | Waterbody | #3630ee | 0 |
| 2 | 3 | 33286.0 | Riverine forest | #27f90c | 0 |
| 1 | 2 | 33046.0 | Plantation forest | #4d7619 | 0 |
| 0 | 1 | 16621.0 | Montane forest | #6ed277 | 0 |
| 9 | 10 | 10556.0 | Builtup | #833023 | 0 |
| 13 | 14 | 2582.0 | Barerock | #132e1e | 0 |
Generate plots
Using the unique values data frame above, a bar chart the major land cover types can be plotted:
mask = uniquevals["percentage"] > 0
uniquevals_sig = uniquevals[mask]
ax = uniquevals_sig.plot.barh(
x="label", y="percentage", legend=False, figsize=(9, 5),
color=uniquevals_sig["color"]
)
ax.bar_label(ax.containers[0], padding=3)
plt.title(
"Major land cover types for Taita Taveta County, Kenya - 2020" +
"\n[Data: Abera et al. 2021 (CC-BY-4.0)]"
)
plt.ylabel("")
plt.xlabel("Land cover (%)")
plt.show()
The next step is to create colour maps using the legend data. The unique values must be converted back to integers first:
uniquevals["value"] = uniquevals["value"].astype(int)
uniquevals.sort_values("value", inplace=True)
A continuous colour map is created using Matplotlib’s LinearSegmentedColormap2; this ensures each unique value has the right colour assigned based on the legend entries. The unique values are normalised from 0 to 1 using the maximum and minimum value ranges prior to creating the colour map:
colours = list(uniquevals["color"])
nodes = np.array(uniquevals["value"])
# normalisation
nodes = (nodes - min(nodes)) / (max(nodes) - min(nodes))
colours = LinearSegmentedColormap.from_list(
"LCM", list(zip(nodes, colours))
)
# view the colour map
colours
A discrete colour map is created solely for the legend in the final plot:
col_discrete = ListedColormap(list(uniquevals["color"]))
# view the colour map
col_discrete
Finally, the land cover plot can be created. A dummy plot must be created so that the discrete colour map is used as the legend3:
# create a dummy plot for the discrete colour map as the legend
img = plt.figure(figsize=(15, 15))
img = plt.imshow(np.array([[0, len(uniquevals)]]), cmap=col_discrete)
img.set_visible(False)
# assign the legend's tick labels
ticks = list(np.arange(.5, len(uniquevals) + .5, 1))
cbar = plt.colorbar(ticks=ticks)
cbar.ax.set_yticklabels(list(uniquevals["label"]))
landcover.plot(add_colorbar=False, cmap=colours)
plt.axis("equal")
plt.xlim(landcover.rio.bounds()[0] - .01, landcover.rio.bounds()[2] + .01)
plt.ylim(landcover.rio.bounds()[1] - .01, landcover.rio.bounds()[3] + .01)
plt.title("Taita Taveta County, Kenya - 2020 Land cover map")
plt.text(38.75, -4.4, "Data: © Abera et al. 2021 (CC-BY-4.0)")
plt.xlabel("Longitude")
plt.ylabel("Latitude")
plt.show()
Next steps
Adding other map elements, such as a north arrow and a scale bar.
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