Interpolation and Autocorrelation

Content for Wednesday, October 19, 2022

Resources

• Chapter 2: Scale in (Fletcher and Fortin 2018) provides a thorough introduction to the ecologist’s conceptualization of scale with R examples.

• This article by Steven Manson (Manson 2008) provides a more comprehensive view of conceptualizations of scale.

• The Hypothesis Testing and Autocorrelation chapters of Manuel Gimond’s Introduction to GIS and Spatial Analysis bookdown project provide concrete examples of attempts to find process from spatial patterns.

Objectives

By the end of today you should be able to:

• Distinguish deterministic and stochastic processes

• Define autocorrelation and describe its estimation

• Articulate the benefits and drawbacks of autocorrelation

• Leverage point patterns and autocorrelation to interpolate missing data

Slides

The slides for today’s lesson are available online as an HTML file. Use the buttons below to open the slides either as an interactive website or as a static PDF (for printing or storing for later). You can also click in the slides below and navigate through them with your left and right arrow keys.

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Quantifying spatial patterns

Patterns as process

Tobler’s law

Interpolation

References

Fletcher, R., and M. Fortin. 2018. Spatial ecology and conservation modeling. Springer.

Manson, S. M. 2008. Does scale exist? An epistemological scale continuum for complex human–environment systems. Geoforum 39:776–788.