Spatial Statistics Group

The Spatial Statistics Interest Group is open to all SASA members involved in statistics of spatial data. This includes, but is not limited to, geostatistics, GIS applications, spatial analysis, spatial disease modelling, spatial data science, location data and remote sensing. The group aims to develop stronger capacity of statisticians with spatial analysis skills, as well as facilitate networking. The group hosts a number of webinars and seminars annually, discusses spatial skill development across the SASA member base, as well as alert members to international events in Spatial Statistics.

The group is led by Prof Fabris-Rotelli, Prof Pravesh Debba and Ms Renate Thiede.

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The Impact of Spatial Statistics in Africa

Prof Linda Haines and Prof Christien Thiart

25 July 2022, 17h00

In this talk we will discuss the impact of spatial statistics in Africa, with material based on our paper in Spatial Statistics which was published earlier this year. We will begin by reviewing, very briefly, metrics defining Africa and the key models used within spatial statistics. We will then relate a fascinating story, namely that the geostatistical model of Krige and Matheron is truly “Out of Africa”. We will continue by discussing, in some detail, the impact of spatial statistics on the key areas of health, ecology, climate, geoscience and theory in terms of the data available, the research and the challenges. Throughout the talk we will place particular emphasis on papers in Spatial Statistics which have African authors or co-authors, or which include African datasets, or both. We will also make some tentative recommendations during the presentation and will include some broad-based comments at the end. Note that an extensive bibliography relating to the talk is available in our paper.