Chapter Four

Spatial Analysis

By: Shimels D(MPH)

April, 2023

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 Spatial Analysis Concepts
• Spatial: is related to the position, area, shape and size of things and describes how
objects fit together in space on earth.

• Spatial data: “Information about the locations and shapes of geographic features
and the relationships between them, usually stored as coordinates and topology.”

• Topology in GIS is generally defined as the spatial relationships between adjacent

or neighboring features

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 Spatial analysis concept cont’d…
• Spatial analysis is the heart of GIS because it includes all of the transformations,
manipulations, and methods that can be applied to geographic to add value to
them, to support decisions, and to reveal patterns.

• Spatial analysis allows you to solve complex location-oriented problems and

better understand where and what is occurring in your world.

• It goes beyond simple mapping to let you study the characteristics of places and
the relationships between them.

• Spatial analysis gives new perspectives to your decision making.

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 Spatial analysis concept cont’d…
• Spatial analysis is one of the most interesting and remarkable aspect of GIS.

• Using spatial analysis, you can combine information from many sources and
derive new sets of information by applying a sophisticated set of spatial
operators.

• Comprehensive collection of spatial analysis tools extends your ability to answer

complex spatial questions.

• Statistical analysis can determine if the patterns that you see are significant.

• You can analyze various layers to calculate the suitability of a place for a
particular activity and by employing image analysis, you can detect change over
time.

• These tools enable you to address critically important questions and decisions
that are beyond the scope of simple visual analysis.
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 Spatial Analysis cont’d…

Analysis

• Analysis is the process of inferring meaning from data.

• The true power of GIS lies in the ability to perform analysis

• Analysis in a GIS can also be carried out by measurements, statistical

computations, fitting models to data values other operation

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 What is spatial Analysis?
“The process of examination the locations, attributes, and relationships of the
features in spatial data through overlay and other analytical techniques in order to
address a question or gain useful knowledge.

 Spatial analysis is a process in which you model problems geographically, derive

results by computer processing, and then explore and examine those results.

Spatial analysis extracts or creates new information from spatial data.”

Spatial Analysis

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 What is spatial Analysis cont’d…
• The data analysis domain of a GIS includes a variety of data processing functions
that aim at deriving spatial relationships, patterns and trends that are implicit in
the source data.

• The results of data analysis may be used immediately for spatial problem solving
and decision making or

• as input for further spatial analysis and modeling.

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 What is spatial autocorrelation?
 Spatial autocorrelation is a measure of the correlation of an observation with other
observations through space

 Most statistical analyses are based on the assumption that the values of observations
are independent of one another

 It violates this assumption, because observations at near-by locations are related to

each other,

 It helps to understand the degree to which one object is similar to other nearby
objects

 It measures how much close objects are in comparison with other close objects.

 Based on Tobler’s first low of Geography, “Everything is related to everything else,

but near things are more related than distant
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 What is spatial autocorrelation cont’d…
 It has been gaining attention in recent years, and research have shown that ignoring
this factor may lead to a biased estimation of the modeling parameters

 It can be measured by Moran’s I (Index) (one of the oldest indices and can be used to test
for global autocorrelation among continuous data)

 Moran’s I can be classified as positive, negative and no spatial auto-correlation

 Positive occurs when observations having similar values are closer (clustered) to one
another

 Negative occurs when observations having dissimilar values occur near one another

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 Autocorrelation cont’d….
Positive Spatial Autocorrelation Example

• Positive spatial autocorrelation is when similar values cluster together in a map

and occurs when Moran’s I is close to +1

• This means values cluster together

For example, elevation datasets have similar elevation values close to each other

• There is clustering in the land cover image above.

• This clustered pattern generates a Moran’s I of 0.60

• The z-score of 4.95 indicates there is a less than 1% likelihood that this clustered

pattern could be the result of random choice

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 Autocorrelation cont’d….

Negative Spatial Autocorrelation Example

 Negative spatial autocorrelation is when dissimilar values cluster together in a map and
occurs when Moran’s I is near -1.

 Moran’s I is -1 because dissimilar values are next to each other.

 A value of 0 for Moran’s I typically indicates no autocorrelation.

 Using the spatial autocorrelation tool in ArcGIS, the checkerboard pattern generates a
Moran’s index of -1.00 with a z-score of -7.59.

 NB: The z-score indicates the statistical significance given the number of features in the
dataset.
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 What are spatial statistics?
 They are similar to classical statistics, but they integrate spatial relationships
into the calculations.

 Spatial statistics will allow you to answer questions about your data:

 How are the features distributed?

 What is the pattern created by the features?

 Where are the clusters?

 How do patterns and clusters of different variables compare on one another?

 What are the relationships between sets of features or values?

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 Testing of the existence of clusters (Autocorrelation)
A. Global Tools /Statistics/
• Are tools used to test the existence of overall clustering (either high or low)

• It doesn’t indicate the occurrence of specific pattern

• But, used to identify and measure the pattern of the entire study areas

• It is a single value statistic used to summarize pattern

• Homogeneity

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 Testing of the existence of clusters cont’d…
B. Local Tools /statistics/
 Test the existence of local clusters

 Identify variation across the study area, focusing on individual

features and their relationships to near by features

 It is location specific statistics (i.e. specific areas of clustering)

 Heterogeneity

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 A. Global Statistics
i) Getis-Ord General G (High/Low Clustering)

 General G is a tool used to measure the concentration of high/low values for a

given study area

 The Global G statistic computes a single statistic for the entire study area

 Able to indicate whether there is a clustering of high or low values but not both

 Value of G score indicates statistically significant relationships

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 Global Statistics cont’d…
 The draw back is that, if there are both high and low clusters they will counteract each
other so it is advisable to first use Moran’s I

 G statistics are useful when negative spatial autocorrelation (outliers) is negligible

 High G score: Statistically significant clustering of high values

 Low G value: Slight clustering of low values

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 Formula for Getis-Ord General G

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 Interpretation of Getis-Ord General G result
 It is an inferential statistic, which means that the results of the analysis are
interpreted within the context of the null hypothesis

 The null hypothesis states that there is no spatial clustering of feature values

 When the p-value returned by this tool is small and statistically significant, the null
hypothesis can be rejected

 If the null hypothesis is rejected, the sign of the z-score becomes important.

 If the z-score value is positive, the observed General G index is larger than the
expected General G index, indicating that high values for the attribute are
clustered in the study area.

 If the z-score value is negative, the observed General G index is smaller than the
expected index, indicating that low values are clustered in the study area.

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 Global statistics cont’d….
ii) Spatial Auto-Correlation (Global Moran’s I)

 Measures whether the pattern of feature values is clustered, dispersed, or random.

 Global Statistic

 Calculates I values to test for statistically significant clustering

 High and low values are not separated (exist together)

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 Global statistics cont’d..
Interpretation Global Moran’s I
• Global Moran's I tool is an inferential statistic, which means that the results of the
analysis are always interpreted within the context of its null hypothesis

• The null hypothesis states that the attribute being analyzed is randomly distributed
among the features in your study area;

• In another way, the spatial processes promoting the observed pattern of values is
random chance.

• When the p-value returned by this tool is statistically significant, you can reject the
null hypothesis.

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 Interpretation Global Moran’s I cont’d….

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 Global Moran's I vs. Getis-Ord General G
 Both techniques are used to assess the global clustering (simply tell you whether
there is a cluster or not where the clustering actually exist)

 The assumptions behind both statistics are that your data is continuous and
normally distributed in the study area.

 Moran's I measure only indicates that similar values occur together (It does not
indicate whether any cluster is composed of high or low values)

 Where as General G statistic can be used to indicate whether high or low values are
concentrated over the study area

 Hence, when we wish to find out whether our data is clustered in general (auto
correlated) we can use Moran's I.

 How eve, if we want to know more specifically whether or not there are clusters of
high/low values we can use G statistics
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 Moran's I vs. Getis-Ord General G

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 B. Local statistics
i) Anselin Local Moran’s I (Cluster and outlier analysis )
 Measures the strength of patterns for each specific feature.

 Given a set of weighted features, cluster and outlier analysis identifies

statistically significant hotspots, cold spots and spatial outliers

 The math of the two are the same as to the global variant but the result are
somewhat different

 Anselin Local Moran’s I can identify HH, LL, HL, LH clusters H=High
L=Low HL is a high value surrounded by low values (outliers)
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 Local statistics cont’d…

 Interpretation of Anselin Local Moran’s I

 A positive value for I

 Indicates that a feature has neighboring features with similarly high or low
attributes values;

 Feature is part of a cluster•

 Statistically significant clusters can consist of high values (HH) or low values (LL)

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 Local statistics cont’d…

Negative value for I

 Indicates that a feature has neighboring features with dissimilar values;

 Feature is an outlier

 Statistically significant outliers can be a feature with a high surrounded by features

with low values (HL) or a feature with a low value surrounded by features with
high values (LH)

 In either instance, a p-value for the feature must be small enough for the cluster or
outlier to be considered statistically significant

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 Local statistics cont’d…
ii) Hotspot Analysis (Getis-Ord Gi*)
• Local version of the G statistic that indicates hot spot (cluster of high values) or
cold spots (clusters of low value)

 To be statistically significant, the hot or cold spot will have a high/low value and be
surrounded by other features with high/low values exist in the area

 Getis-Ord Gi* can identify Hot (High) or Cold (Low) clusters with different
confidence levels

 It is useful when negative spatial autocorrelation (outliers) is negligible

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Getis-Ord Gi* (High/Clustering) vs. Anselin Local Moran’s I
 The math of the two are the same as for the global variant but the results are
somewhat different

 Getis-Ord Gi* can identify Hot (High) or Cold (Low) clusters with different
confidence intervals.

 Anselin Local Moran's I can identify HH, LL, LH, HL clusters where
H=High, L=Low and HL is a high value surrounded by low values

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Best practice guidelines for using cluster and outlier analysis
(Anselin Local Moran’s I)
 Results are only reliable if the input feature class contains at least 30 features;

 This tool requires an input field such as count, rate, or other numeric
measurements

 If you are analyzing point data, where each point represents a single event or
incident, you might not have a specific numeric attribute to evaluate (a
severity ranking, count or other measurement)

 If you are interested in finding locations with many incidents (hot spots)
and /or locations with very few incidents (cold spot)s), you will need to
aggregate your incident data prior to analysis
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 Best practice guidelines for using cluster cont’d……

 Select an appropriate conceptualization of spatial relationships

 Select an appropriate distance band or threshold distance

 All features should have at least one neighbor

 No feature should have all other features as a neighbor

 Especially if the values for the input field are asked, each feature should have
about eight neighbors

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 Best Practice guidelines for using Cluster cont’d…
 Given a set of weighted features, the Getis-Ord Gi* (pronounced as Gee Eye Star) statistic
identifies statistically significant hot pots and cold spots

 This tool works by looking feature with in the context of neighboring features.

 A feature with high value is interesting but may not be statistically significant

 To be statistically significant hot spot, a feature will have a high value and be surrounded by
other features with high values as well.

 The local sum of features & its neighbors is compared proportionally to the sum of all
features;

 Wen the sum is very different from the expected local sum, and when that difference is too
large to be the result of random chance, a statistically
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 Clustering vs Clusters
 The mapping clusters tools perform cluster analysis to identify the locations of
statistically significant hot spots, cold spots, spatial outliers and similar features

 Clustering can be detected at the Global level where clusters at the local level

 Moran’s I is a global statistic, i.e. a single value for the whole spatial pattern

 Moran’s I does not provide the location of clusters

 Cluster detection requires a local statistic

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 Interpolation
What is Interpolation?

 Interpolation is the procedure of estimating unknown values at un sampled sites

using known values of existing observations.

 It can be used to predict unknown values for any geographic point data, such as
home delivery, high child mortality, low ANC visit and so on.

 Interpolation predicts values for cells in a raster from a limited number of sample
data points.

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 Interpolation Methods
INVERSE DISTANCE WEIGHTED (IDW)

• The Inverse Distance Weighting interpolator assumes that each input point has a
local influence that diminishes with distance.

• It weights the points closer to the processing cell greater than those further away.

• A specified number of points, or all points within a specified radius can be used to
determine the output value of each location.

• Use of this method assumes the variable being mapped decreases in influence with
distance from its sampled location.

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 Interpolation Methods cont’d…

• IDW interpolation explicitly implements the assumption that things that are close
to one another are more alike than those that are farther apart.

• To predict a value for any unmeasured location, IDW will use the measured values
surrounding the prediction location.

• Those measured values closest to the prediction location will have more influence
on the predicted value than those farther away.

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 Interpolation Methods cont’d…
Kriging
• Kriging is a geostatistical interpolation technique that considers both the distance
and the degree of variation between known data points when estimating values in
unknown areas.

• A kriged estimate is a weighted linear combination of the known sample values

around the point to be estimated.

• Kriging procedure that generates an estimated surface from a scattered set of

points with z-values.

• Kriging assumes that the distance or direction between sample points reflects a
spatial correlation that can be used to explain variation in the surface.
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 Interpolation Methods cont’d…

• The Kriging tool fits a mathematical function to a specified number of points, or all
points within a specified radius, to determine the output value for each location.

• Kriging is a multistep process; it includes exploratory statistical analysis of the

data, variogram modeling, creating the surface, and (optionally) exploring a
variance surface.

• Kriging is most appropriate when you know there is a spatially correlated distance
or directional bias in the data.

• It is often used in soil science and geology

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 Proximity/Buffer analysis

• Buffer is a zone of a specified distance from a selected feature and it

involves the creation of a zone with a specified width around a point,
line or area.
• Buffer analysis is used for identifying areas surrounding any type of
feature, whether it is point, line or polygon.
• The buffer polygon is created to a specified distance around an input
feature.
Buffer analysis…
Toolbox analysis tool  proximity  buffer

 Creates buffer polygons around input features to a specified

distance.
 Thank You!
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