GIS Operations and Spatial Analysis

• Turns raw data into useful information

• by adding greater informative content and value
• Reveals patterns, trends, and anomalies
that might otherwise be missed
• Provides a check on human intuition
• by helping in situations where the eye might
deceive
• Thousands of techniques exist…
Map of Cholera Deaths by John Snow

• Provides a classic example of the use of location to

draw inferences
• But the same pattern could arise from contagion
• if the original carrier lived in the center of the outbreak
• contagion was the hypothesis Snow was trying to refute
• today, a GIS could be used to show a sequence of maps as the
outbreak developed
• contagion would produce a concentric sequence, drinking water
a random sequence
 Map Algebra
• C. Dana Tomlin (1983…)
• implemented in many grid analysis
packages, including ArcGrid, Idrisi, MapII,
ArcView Spatial Analyst
• Four classes of operations:
• local
• focal
• zonal
• incremental

DEMO
 Local Functions
• work on single cells, one after another, value
assigned to a cell depends on this cell only
• examples:
• arithmetic operations with a constant, or with another grid:

2 0 1 6 0 3 2 0 1 1 5 3 2 0 3
• also *logical
3 = operations, comparisons (min, max, majority,
2 4 minority,
0 6 12etc.)
variety, 0 2 4 0 * 4 4 3 = 8 16 0
3 1 9 3 3 1 2 5 6 6 6
Polygon Overlay, Discrete Object Case

B
A
In this example, two
polygons are intersected to
form 9 new polygons. One
is formed from both input
polygons; four are formed
by Polygon A and not
Polygon B; and four are
formed by Polygon B and
not Polygon A.
 Focal Functions
• assign data value to a cell based on its
neighborhood (variously defined)
• uses:
• smoothing - moving averaging
• edge detection
• assessing variety, etc.
• examples:
• focal sum - adds up values in cell neighborhood, and assigns
this value to the focal cell
• focal mean - averages values in neighborhood,and assigns
the result to the focal cell
• also: logical functions, other mathematical
 Shapes of Neighborhoods

1 1
3 4 6 3 6
4 4
5 1 2 5 1 2
3 4 6 3 4 6
3 4 4 3 4 4
 Kinds of Neighborhoods

• Neighborhood: a set of locations each of which

bears a specified distance and/or directional
relationship to a particular location called the
neighborhood focus (D. Tomlin)
• distance and directional neighbors
• immediate and extended neighbors
• metric and topological neighbors
• neighbors of points, lines, areas...
 Neighborhood Operations
some function

1
3 4 6 X
4
Functions:
Total: X = 18 Variety: X = 4
Average: X = 4 Median: X = 4
Minimum: X = 1 Deviation: X = 0
Maximum: X = 6 Std. dev.: X = 2
Minority: X = 1 (or 3, or 6) Proportion: X = 40
Majority: X = 4 ...
 Neighborhood Statistics

• In Spatial Analyst you can specify:

• shape of neighborhood: | Circle | Rectangle |
Doughnut | Wedge
• size of neighborhood: radius (circle), inner and
outer radius (doughnut), radius, start and end
angles (wedge), width and height (rectangle)
• operation: | Minimum | Maximum | | Mean |
Median | Sum | Range | Standard Dev. | Majority
| Minority | Variety |
 Buffer: a Typical Neighborhood

• Buffers and offsets

• Buffers in vector form
• either a chain of “sausages”
• or a Voronoi network
• Buffers in raster form
• a two-step operation: (1) create a map of
distances from the object; (2) reclassify it into a
binary map
 Buffering

Polyline

Polygon
Point
 Applications of Buffers

• Exclusionary screening / ranking - in site

selection studies
• Environmental regulations

Main question: how wide??

-depends on a variety of political / social /
economic / cultural circumstances, often
difficult to formalize...
differs by states and counties
 Zonal Functions
• assign values to all cells in a zone, based
on values from another map
zonal grid + values grid => output grid

2 0 0 1 2 3 max 4 6 6
2 4 0 4 5 6 4 9 6
3 4 7 8 9 7 9

again, many types of functions are available

 Global (incremental) Functions
• cell value for each cell depends on
processing the entire grid
• examples:
• computing distance from one cell (or group of cells) to all other
cells
• distance can be weighted by some impedance factor => cost-
distance surfaces
• uses:
• diffusion modeling
• shortest path modeling, distance-based site selection
• visibility analysis
• connectivity and fragmentation in habitat analysis, etc.
Rules of Map Combination
• Dominance
• selects one value from those available,
other values ignored; an external rule is
used for selection
• Contributory
• values from each map contribute to the
result, typically combined with some
+ arithmetic operation, ignoring
interdependence of factors (each value
contributes without regard to others)
• Interaction
• interaction between factors is accounted for,
more flexible design
 Dominance Rules: Excl. Screening
• Exclusionary screening
• selects one value from the available set, ignoring
others, usually by an externally specified rule
• exclusionary screening (“one strike and you’re out”)
• binary (yes/no)
• typically an iterative process (two risks: either too much
area left, or too much excluded)

1 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 0
0 0 1 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0
and ==>
0 1 1 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1
1 1 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 0
in map calculator, with 0/1 themes, can simply multiply them
 Dominance Rules: Excl. Ranking
• for ordinal data => take min, or max
• common for land resource assessment
• for example: encode areas with most severe
limitation by any of the factors (max)

1 2 1 2 3 1 1 1 3 2 1 2
3 3 1 3 2 1 3 3 3 3 3 3
and ==>
1 3 1 2 1 1 2 1 1 3 2 2
1 1 1 2 1 1 1 3 1 1 1 3
Dominance: Highest Bid/Bidder
• apply to ratio data
• examples:
• max profit for a site => highest bid
• activity/developer providing the maximum profit
=> highest bidder
6.1 7.5 6.7 8.1
3.1 2.4 7.6 6.6 highest
5.3 6.2 6.7 8.1 6.1 7.5 6.2 7.1 6.5 7.5 8.2 9.1 bid
1.1 1.4 5.6 6.6 3.1 2.4 7.6 5.6 3.3 6.5 7.7 6.2
6.5 7.4 8.2 9.1and
6.3 7.5 8.0 5.1
3.3 5.5 7.7 6.2 2.3 6.5 5.7 5.2 2 2 1 1
highest
2 2 2 1
Factor 1 Factor 2 1 2 1 1 bidder
1 2 1 1
 Contributory: Voting Tabulation
• how many positive (or negative) factors
occur at a location (number of votes cast)
• applies to nominal categories

1 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 2 0 0
0 0 1 0 0 1 0 1 0 1 1 1
+ ==>
0 1 1 1 0 1 0 1 0 2 1 2
1 1 1 0 0 0 1 0 1 1 2 0
also, can produce the most frequent/least
frequent value, etc.

… is an area excluded on two criteria twice as

excluded as area excluded on one factor?...
 Contributory: Weighted Voting
• weights express relative importance of each
factor, factors are still 0 and 1

1 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 3 8 0 0
0 0 1 0 0 1 0 1 0 5 3 5
3x 0 1 1 1
+ 5x 0 1 0 1
==>
0 8 3 8
1 1 1 0 0 0 1 0 3 3 8 0

weights of factors
Contributory: Linear Combination
• each factor map is expressed as a set of
site rankings
• these rankings are added up for each cell

1 2 1 2 3 1 1 1 4 3 2 3
3 3 1 3 2 1 3 3 5 4 4 6
+ ==>
1 3 1 2 1 1 2 1 2 4 3 3
1 1 1 2 1 1 1 3 2 2 2 5
consider this:
2=1+1 this is what happens when
3=1+2=2+1 you add up ordinal data.
4=1+3=2+2=3+1 Perhaps, convert them to
5=2+3=3+2 ratio (dollars)?
6=3+3
Contributory: Weighting and Rating
• factor maps composed of rankings,
weights externally assigned
• a rather problematic, though very popular
method
1 2 1 2 3 1 1 1 18 11 8 11
3 3 1 3 2 1 3 3 19 14 18 24
3x 1 3 1 2
+ 5x 1 1 2 1
==>
8 14 13 11
1 1 1 2 1 1 1 3 8 8 8 21

weights of factors

Also, there is Non-linear combination (like USLE) -

particularly sensitive to errors, zero values...
 How to Assign Weights

• Delphi techniques
• to aid decision-makers in making value judgments;
elicit and refine group judgments where exact
knowledge is unavailable
• rounds of “blind’ individual ratings by professionals
• rounds of open discussion of differences
• re-evaluations
• often: categories and their sets are redefined
• task: to obtain a reliable consensus
• Binary comparisons
 Interaction Rules 1
• “Gestalt”, or Integrated Survey
• a field team is sent out to produce an integral map...
• Factor combination
• all possible combinations are considered and rated
1:1&1
1 2 1 2 3 1 1 1 3 4 1 4 2:1&2
3 3 1 3 2 1 3 3 8 7 3 9 3:1&3
and ==>
1 3 1 2 1 1 2 1 1 7 2 4 4:2&1
1 1 1 2 1 1 1 3 1 1 1 6 5:2&2
6:2&3
7:3&1
legend 8:3&2
9:3&3
number of potential categories rises quickly,
but fortunately just a small fraction survive
 Interaction Rules 2
• Interaction tables
• values of one factor determine weights of
other factors, then weighting/rating scheme
is applied
• Hierarchical rules of combination
• Binary comparisons
NOTE THAT ALL THESE METHODS -
Dominance, Contributory, Interaction -
APPLY TO OVERLAY, NEIGHBORHOOD
OPERAITONS, ZONAL OPERATIONS, etc. -
everywhere where you need to combine values