¹National Centre for Geocomputation, National University of Ireland, Maynooth, Co. Kildare, Ireland

Correspondence: Urka Demar, National Centre for Geocomputation, National University of Ireland, Maynooth, Co. Kildare, Ireland. Tel: +353 1 7086178; Fax: +353 1 7086455; E-mail: urska.demsar@nuim.ie

Received 17 April 2008; Revised 30 May 2008; Accepted 9 June 2008; Published online 31 July 2008.

Abstract

The paper examines the potential for combining a spatial statistical methodology – Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR) – with geovisual analytical exploration to help understand complex spatio-temporal processes. This is done by applying the combined statistical – exploratory methodology to a simulated data set in which the behaviour of regression parameters was controlled across space and time. A variety of complex spatio-temporal processes was captured through space-time (i.e. as spatio-temporal) varying parameters whose values were known. The task was to see if the proposed methodology could uncover these complex processes from the data alone. The results of the experiment confirm that the combined methodology can successfully identify spatio-temporal patterns in the local GWR parameter estimates that correspond to the controlled behaviour of the original parameters.