Handbook of Applied Spatial Analysis: Software Tools, Methods and Applications

摘要

Spatial data are widely used in many disciplines, including economics, environmental sciences, health sciences, anthropology, sociology, and political science, as well as in the traditional fields of geography and regional science. However, spatial data require distinct analytical techniques due to their special characteristics. They contain abundant locational information such as distance, adjacency, interaction, and neighborhood, but analysis encounters a number of difficulties, including spatial dependency, heterogeneity, nonstationarity, scale differences, modifiable areal units, etc. Observers in many fields have expressed concern about the lack of understanding of appropriate spatial analysis techniques, and consequently tremendous research efforts have been made to develop methods and apply them in solving real-world problems.