GISC9318 – Spatial Statistics

Deliverable D4 B
Geostatistical Analysis of Collected
Spatial Data

April 20, 2020

Prepared by: Darshana Sawant &

Nooria Kuhan
 ND GIS Analysts
6636 Barker Street,
Niagara Falls, ON, Canada
L2G1Y8
T: 289-931-4070
nkuhanr@gmail.com
darshanasawant2511@gmail.com
Ian D. Smith,
Professor, GIS-GM and ER
M.Sc., OLS, OLIP, EP, CERP 19 April 2020

Niagara College
135 Taylor Road,
Niagara-On-The-Lake, Ontario
L0S 1J0

Dear Mr. Smith,

  Subject: Re: Submission of Deliverable 4 (Part b: Final Geostatical Report)

 Please consider this letter as our official submission of Deliverable 4b GISC9318-01 Spatial
Analysis/Statistics. The goal of this deliverable is to derive a working ability to report upon the
collection of geospatial data and to describe the data both geostatistically as well as practically
to demonstrate a clear understanding of the data’s extent and validity.

This Report includes the Data that have been occurred from the Great Lakes Marine Security
Services about the Marine Occurrences in the Great Lakes Area.

If you have any questions regarding the documents or any difficulties in opening the documents
kindly contact us at (647) 394 6333 or you can mail us at our email IDs.

Regards,

ND GIS Analysts
6636 Barker Street
Niagara Falls, Ontario
L2G 1Y8
(647) 394 6333
Executive Summary
This Geostatical Analysis Final Report puts light on two different method to analyze the data. This report
contains the different parameters we have used while applying the Kriging as well as Inverse Distance
Weighted (IDW) method. These methods were applied to the Marine Occurrence data that was received
from our client (Canadian Coast Guard). This data covered the Incidents that were occurred during
January 2019 to December 2019. All the data is shown in points. This data was then used to create the
heat map using Kriging method as well as to check the frequency value for area according to the incident
occurred with the use of IDW method.

After running both the methods we found out the which method is more suitable for the data that we
have. All our findings are added to this report

i
 Contents
GISC9318 – Spatial Statistics......................................................................................................................1

Deliverable D4 B....................................................................................................................................1

Executive Summary......................................................................................................................................i

1. Introduction.........................................................................................................................................3

2. Review.................................................................................................................................................4

1.1 Study Area...................................................................................................................................4

2 Methodology.......................................................................................................................................5

2.1 Kriging..........................................................................................................................................5

2.2 Inverse Distance Weighted IDW..................................................................................................7

3 Findings...............................................................................................................................................8

4 Recommendations.............................................................................................................................10

5 Closure...............................................................................................................................................10

6 Bibliography.......................................................................................................................................10

Figure 1 Study Area - Great Lakes................................................................................................................5

Figure 2 Rate of Incidence...........................................................................................................................6

Figure 3 Type of Incidence...........................................................................................................................7

Figure 4:Summary of the parameters used in IDW method........................................................................9

Figure 5:Zoomed Capture of the data after IDW method..........................................................................10

Figure 6 Monthly Breakdown....................................................................................................................12

ii
YAppendix 1...................................................................................................................................................

iii
Spatial Analysis & Statistics Report

1. Introduction
“The Canadian Coast Guard (CCG) at the Great Lakes Marine Security Operation Centre (GL-MSOC) has
an area of responsibility that extends from St. Lambert Locks in Montreal, Quebec, to Thunder Bay,
Ontario.”[ CITATION Wil19 \l 1033 ]

One of the concerns at the Great Lakes area this year is, the challenges and obstacles blocking the
smooth trend of operation of CCG (Canadian Coast Guard). To mitigate and better understand the
vulnerabilities, threats, and risks an efficient method and logical solutions are needed to analyze and use
the current data obtained by CCG personal across the area of operations. To enhance decision making
and extract useful information from data and taking the right decision based upon the data analysis one
of the best technics to be relied on, is statistical method. The following report demonstrate the different
statistical methods analyzing the Canadian Coast Guard data.

Page 4 of 17
April 19, 2020
Spatial Analysis & Statistics Report

2. Review
1.1 Study Area

The Area of Interest for this project is the entire Great Lakes Marine Area. This area is mainly divided
into 5 different lakes such as Lake Erie, Lake Ontario, Lake Superior, Lake Huron, St. Lawrence River, St.
Lambert Locks as well as Lawrence River. The sample points cover all the lakes as well as river along with
the 1.7 Miles south of Lamington Harbor 300 Meters off Meaford, and 5 Miles east of Port Burwell
(Figure 1) below.

Figure 1 Study Area - Great Lakes

The data has been collected from 1-Jan-2019 to 12-Dec-2019 by the Marine Security Operation Centre personal in
the field and was reported on daily bases back to the main office/offices of Marine Security Operation Centre (GL-
MSOC) either via phone or radio. According to the Marine Security Operation Centre (GL-MSOC) all the data is
reliable and accurate.

Page 5 of 17
April 19, 2020
Spatial Analysis & Statistics Report

2 Methodology
2.1 Kriging

The method that has chosen for creating a site of the Great Lakes is a map illustrates sample (point) of
locations, the data has been provided by the Marine Security Operation Centre (GLMSOC). Data is in xls
format and 964 points have been chosen to better portray the site. The data illustrates the type of
incidence and the break down goes up to date, time, location, and type of incidence.

The data has been classified in seven classes according to the rate of incidences in each lake (Figure 2)
below.

Figure 2 Rate of Incidence

Page 6 of 17
April 19, 2020
Spatial Analysis & Statistics Report

The RStudio application is utilized to display a statement of the mean, median and standard deviation.
For the type of incidences that occurred in Great Lakes (Figure 3) below, the mean value is 32.24,
median is 18.00, and the standard deviation is 67.02
Figure 3 Type of Incidence

Page 7 of 17
April 19, 2020
Spatial Analysis & Statistics Report

To better represent which area gets the most attention and which lake has the highest rate of incidences
heat map is used to visually display the concerned locations.

“Heatmaps allow easy identification of hotspots and clustering of points, the density is calculated based
on the number of points in a location, with larger numbers of clustered points resulting in larger values.
Hot spot analysis uses statistical analysis in order to define areas of high occurrence versus areas of low
occurrence.  Since hot spot areas are statistically significant, the end visualization is less
subjective. ”[ CITATION CAI14 \l 1033 ]

Since Marine Security Operation Centre (GL-MSOC) data is in victor format and contains a large number
of points feature and in some area the points are overlapped and dense, therefore it has been
considered to visualize the incidence data using the heatmap interpolation technique.

The data is saved in csv format and added to ArcGIS Pro. A topographic serve as a reference map, the
base map is in geographic coordinate system therefore the data set is projected as geographic NAD
1983.

The constant rendering method has been selected” The Constant method is useful to make accurate
comparisons across different areas in the map as long as the map scale remains the same.” [ CITATION
Esr20 \l 1033 ] and the radius has been set to 25 m “Radius controls the area searched when calculating
the density of features”[ CITATION Esr20 \l 1033 ]

The rendering quality is set to fastest “Set the Rendering quality to Fastest to speed up the drawing time
of your map or Best to maximize image quality.”[ CITATION Esr20 \l 1033 ]

The highest value is set to 7 (Dense) and the lowest is 1 (Sparse).

The final map layout is attached as an (Appendix 1)

2.2 Inverse Distance Weighted IDW

For this method, the Geostatical Extension the Inverse Distance Weighted (IDW) was used. Inverse
distance weighted (IDW) interpolation explicitly assumes that things that are close to one another are

Page 8 of 17
April 19, 2020
Spatial Analysis & Statistics Report

more alike than those that are farther apart. To predict a value for any unmeasured location, IDW uses
the measured values surrounding the prediction location. The measured values closest to the prediction
location have more influence on the predicted value than those farther away. IDW assumes that each
measured point has a local influence that diminishes with distance. It gives greater weights to points
closest to the prediction location, and the weights diminish as a function of distance, hence the name
inverse distance weighted.[ CITATION ESR201 \l 4105 ]

Figure 4:Summary of the parameters used in IDW method

The Power value was set to default 2 as we were focusing on locations that are close to each other. The
maximum searched neighbourhood was set to be 7 and the minimum value for the same was set to be
1. This means that in few locations 7 points will be used to obtain its values whereas few locations will
use only 1 point to obtain its value. The field used for this method were the Marine Incident Occurrence
points that were plotted in the Great Lakes area. Sector type for this method was set to be Sector 1 as it
counts points in different direction equally.

Page 9 of 17
April 19, 2020
Spatial Analysis & Statistics Report

Figure 5:Zoomed Capture of the data after IDW method

The final map layout is attached as an (Appendix 1)

Page 10 of 17
April 19, 2020
Spatial Analysis & Statistics Report

3 Findings
A diagram of occurrences (Figure 6 Monthly BreakdownFigure 6) below

Incidence Occurrences Breakdown by Months

Page 11 of 17
April 19, 2020
Spatial Analysis & Statistics Report

Figure 6 Monthly Breakdown

2019

Displays that the most incidents had occurred during May to September 2019 however June to August is the peak
comparing to the whole year.

Environmental hazards like high waters and adverse weather do impacts some of these locations, especially Great
Lakes-St. Lawrence waterway would experience challenging navigational conditions due to high waters. 

4 Recommendations

After analyzing both the methods we would like to highlight that for this project the Kriging method is
more suitable than the IDW. The kriging method helps to create the heat map which highlights all the

Page 12 of 17
April 19, 2020
Spatial Analysis & Statistics Report

areas that are having more incident occurrence. The results of heat maps help us to find different
locations all over the Great Lakes area to find how close these locations are to which shore.

5 Closure

6 Bibliography
DEMPSEY, C. (2014, 08 10). difference-heat-map-hot-spot-map. Retrieved from GIS Lounch:
https://www.gislounge.com/difference-heat-map-hot-spot-map/

Esri. (2020, 04 16). Heat map symbology. Retrieved from Esri: https://pro.arcgis.com/en/pro-
app/help/mapping/layer-properties/heat-map.htm

Smith, I. D. (2020, February). Deliverables. Retrieved from https://niagara.blackboard.com:

https://niagara.blackboard.com/webapps/blackboard/content/listContent.jsp?
course_id=_206131_1&content_id=_3848794_1

Wilson, G. (2019, Dec. 13). CCG Area of Responsibility. (N. Kuhan, Interviewer) Niagara College.

Page 13 of 17
April 19, 2020
Spatial Analysis & Statistics Report

Appendix 1

Page 14 of 17
April 19, 2020
Spatial Analysis & Statistics Report

Page 15 of 17
April 19, 2020