Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
7
Exploring spatial
point patterns
Introduction
7.1
h e simplest form of spatial data is a spatial point pattern, although approaches to their
analysis are no simpler than is the case with data that have attributes (i.e. have numeric
values attached to them). A spatial point pattern is simply a set of locations that cor-
respond to events. For example, a set of points that shows the locations of trees or of
people with a particular disease is a point pattern. Many tools exist for analysing point
patterns. Such approaches allow assessment of, for example, the degree to which
point events are clustered or dispersed. Synthetic examples of clustered and dispersed
point patterns are given in Figure 7.1 (hereat er referred to as 'Point Pattern 1' or
'PP1') and Figure 7.2 ('PP2'). h e concern is ot en to consider if the point pattern is
spatially structured in some particular way—if the points are clustered then this sug-
gests that events are more likely to occur in some places than in others. Conversely,
Figure 7.1 Clustered point pattern (PP1).
Search WWH ::




Custom Search