Spatial analysis

From Geography

Spatial analysis started in the beginning of the 1950. Geographers were convinced that geography was a science like other sciences and therefore scientific laws could also be applied to geography and researchers should be looking for law like relationships in geography.

The application of quantitative methods in locational analysis within human geography and sometimes used as a synonym for that portion of the discipline that concentrates on the geometry of the landscape spatial science. O’Sullivan and Unwin (2002) present spatial analysis as the study of the arrangements of points, lines, areas and surfaces on a map, and of their interrelationships. Analyses of those separate components have deployed procedures adapted from other sciences – nearest-neighbour analysis and quadrat analysis, for point pattern analysis; graph theory for lines; and trend surface analysis for surfaces, for example. Whereas many geographers have undertaken analyses of the interrelationships using techniques from within the general linear model, others have argued that spatial analysis poses particular statistical problems because of the nature of spatial data spatial autocorrelation, thus requiring special techniques.

Behavioral geography critiqued spatial analysis and formed a bridge from the peopleless landscapes of spatial science to the peopled landscapes of Humanistic geography.

Geographic space

A mathematical space exists whenever we have a set of observations and quantitative measures of their attributes. For example, we can represent individuals' income or years of education within a coordinate system where the location of each individual can be specified with respect to both dimensions. The distances between individuals within this space is a quantitative measure of their differences with respect to income and education. However, in spatial analysis we are concerned with specific types of mathematical spaces, namely, geographic space.

In geographic space, the observations correspond to locations in a spatial measurement framework that captures their proximity in the real world. The locations in a spatial measurement framework often represent locations on the surface of the Earth, but this is not strictly necessary. A spatial measurement framework can also capture proximity with respect to, say, interstellar space or within a biological entity such as a liver. The fundamental tenet is Tobler's First Law of Geography: if the interrelation between entities increases with proximity in the real world, then representation in geographic space and assessment using spatial analysis techniques are appropriate.

References

• Cloke, P., Philo, Ch. & Sadler, D. (1991) Approaching Human Geography. Chapman, London.

• Johnston, R., Gregory, D. Pratt, G. & Watts, M. (2000) The Dictionary of Human Geography, 4th edition. Cambridge: Blackwell Publishing;

• O'Sullivan, D. and D. J. Unwin (2002). Geographic Information Analysis. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley

• Abler, R., J. Adams, and P. Gould (1971) Spatial Organization–The Geographer's View of the World, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Contributors

Published by Mike van der Linden and Paul Cuijpers

Links added and enhanced by --SusanVerbeij 11:32, 19 October 2011 (CEST)

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