AM-23 - Local Measures of Spatial Association
Local measures of spatial association are statistics used to detect variations of a variable of interest across space when the spatial relationship of the variable is not constant across the study region, known as spatial non-stationarity or spatial heterogeneity. Unlike global measures that summarize the overall spatial autocorrelation of the study area in one single value, local measures of spatial association identify local clusters (observations nearby have similar attribute values) or spatial outliers (observations nearby have different attribute values). Like global measures, local indicators of spatial association (LISA), including local Moran’s I and local Geary’s C, incorporate both spatial proximity and attribute similarity. Getis-Ord Gi*, another popular local statistic, identifies spatial clusters at various significance levels, known as hot spots (unusually high values) and cold spots (unusually low values). This so-called “hot spot analysis” has been extended to examine spatiotemporal trends in data. Bivariate local Moran’s I describes the statistical relationship between one variable at a location and a spatially lagged second variable at neighboring locations, and geographically weighted regression (GWR) allows regression coefficients to vary at each observation location. Visualization of local measures of spatial association is critical, allowing researchers of various disciplines to easily identify local pockets of interest for future examination.
AM-54 - Landscape Metrics
Landscape metrics are algorithms that quantify the spatial structure of patterns – primarily composition and configuration - within a geographic area. The term "landscape metrics" has historically referred to indices for categorical land cover maps, but with emerging datasets, tools, and software programs, the field is growing to include other types of landscape pattern analyses such as graph-based metrics, surface metrics, and three-dimensional metrics. The choice of which metrics to use requires careful consideration by the analyst, taking into account the data and application. Selecting the best metric for the problem at hand is not a trivial task given the large numbers of metrics that have been developed and software programs to implement them.