Geostatistics - A Primer of GIS: Fundamental Geographic and Cartographic Concepts - page 269

GI ANALYSIS: UNDERSTANDING OUR WORLD Geostatistics

Chapter 14

Geostatistics

Geostatistics involves both the most complex and the most important GI
analysis operations in part because of the broad uses of geostatistical analy-
ses operations, but perhaps even more due to the underlying power of the
mathematical analysis of GI. For many people geostatistics is far easier to
grasp than abstract mathematics because its mathematics are tied to actual
things and events.
This chapter provides an introduction to the concepts of geostatistics.
First, we examine the concepts by themselves, followed by discussion of
some applications. Geostatistical applications run the gamut of statistics,
applying techniques and concepts from classical probabilistic statistics to
Bayesian-based statistical analysis. In many environments these applications
are only the first cut of more detailed analysis required for assessing geo-
graphic patterns, processes, and relationships.

Patterns Indicate Processes

In geostatistics, patterns express evidence of spatial processes. At first you
may think of pattern in a visual sense—for example, a map showing tempera-
tures across the United States. But, in geostatistics, the visible pattern points
to underlying relationships, which can be expressed mathematically. The
geographic distribution of temperatures helps illustrate this point. Following
fundamental physical laws, the temperatures of any body will tend toward
equilibrium that is, temperatures that start out very different will rise or fall
toward an equilibrium point, somewhere around the average. But clearly
weather, with cold fronts, warm fronts, winds, human inf luences, jet streams,
clouds, and many other characteristics, is dynamic. Temperature is just one
indicator at a particular place of the weather. And the temperatures mea-
sured at various places in an area at a particular point in time form a pattern

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