Introduction: The Need for Spatial Statistics

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Abstract
Geographic information and analysis (GIA) is a critical, emerging scientific discipline. [Cook et al., 1994] The establishment in the late 1980s of the National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis (NCGIA), with funds from the National Science Foundation, attests to its importance. Data that are tied to position on the Earth’s surface, that are spatial or geo-referenced data, often serve as the empirical backbone of much of the research that is presently done in this general context. The statistical analysis of spatial data forms the subject matter of “spatial statistics.” Indeed, in writing about his Cornell Theory Center supercomputer project, Durrett notes [1994, p. 4] that [f]or a half century, the literature … has been dominated by models in which spatial location is ignored and each individual [site] is assumed to interact equally with all the others. Such models provide an acceptable approximation in many contexts, but there is a growing list of examples of phenomena that must be treated by models that are spatially explicit….

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