Geostatistics

Geostatistics appliestheoriesstochastic processesstatistical inferencegeographic phenomena. It was traditionally usedgeo-sciences. Methodsgeostatisticsusedpetroleum geology, hydrogeology, meteorology, oceanography, geochemistry, forestry, environmental control, landscape ecology, agriculture (esp.precision farming) etc.

The basic conceptgeostatisticsthatscalesspatial variation. Spatially independent data showsame variability regardless oflocationdata points. However, spatial datamost casesnot spatially independent. Data values whichclose spatially show less variability than data values whichfarther away from each other. The exact naturethis pattern varies from data setdata set; each setdata has its own unique functionvariabilitydistance between data points. This variabilitygenerally computed asfunction called semivariance.

Spatial autocorrelation can be analyzed using correlograms, covariance functionsvariograms (=semivariograms).

Relevant topics: statistics, geology, GIS, remote sensing, kriging

References:

1. Galli, A., Wackernagel, H.: Multivariate geostatistical methodsspatial data analysis. 1987
2. Sharov, A: Quantitative Population Ecology, 1996, http://www.ento.vt.edu/~sharov/PopEcol/popecol.html
3. Shine, J.A., Wakefield, G.I.: A comparisonsupervised imagery classification using analyst-chosengeostatistically-chosen training sets, 1999, http://www.geovista.psu.edu/sites/geocomp99/Gc99/044/gc_044.htm