In-class Ex2:Spatial Weights

Author

QIU RUILIU

Published

November 25, 2023

Modified

November 27, 2023

Overview

This in-class introduces an alternative R package called sfdep. According to Josiah Parry, the developer of the package, “sfdep builds on the great shoulders of spdep package for spatial dependence. sfdep creates an sf and tidyverse friendly interface to the package as well as introduces new functionality that is not present in spdep. sfdep utilizes list columns extensively to make this interface possible.”

Getting Started

Installing and Loading the R packages

Install and load sf,tmap, sfdep, tidyverse and knitr packages into R environment for preparation.

#pacman:: is for introducing pacman without installing it into R environment
pacman::p_load(sf, sfdep, knitr, tmap, tidyverse, plotly)

Data Importing

For the purpose of in-class exercise, two data sets will be used:

  • Hunan county boundary layer. This is a geospatial data set in ESRI shapefile format.

  • Hunan_2012.csv: This csv file contains selected Hunan’s local development indicators in 2012.

hunan <- st_read(dsn = "data/geospatial", 
                 layer = "Hunan")
Reading layer `Hunan' from data source 
  `D:\KathyChiu77\ISSS624\In-class Ex\In-class_Ex2\data\geospatial' 
  using driver `ESRI Shapefile'
Simple feature collection with 88 features and 7 fields
Geometry type: POLYGON
Dimension:     XY
Bounding box:  xmin: 108.7831 ymin: 24.6342 xmax: 114.2544 ymax: 30.12812
Geodetic CRS:  WGS 84
hunan2012 <- read_csv("data/aspatial/Hunan_2012.csv")

Combining Both Data Frame by Using Left Join

Check and grasp the basic structure of data.

head(hunan,5)
Simple feature collection with 5 features and 7 fields
Geometry type: POLYGON
Dimension:     XY
Bounding box:  xmin: 111.2145 ymin: 28.61762 xmax: 112.3013 ymax: 29.95847
Geodetic CRS:  WGS 84
   NAME_2  ID_3  NAME_3   ENGTYPE_3 Shape_Leng Shape_Area  County
1 Changde 21098 Anxiang      County   1.869074 0.10056190 Anxiang
2 Changde 21100 Hanshou      County   2.360691 0.19978745 Hanshou
3 Changde 21101  Jinshi County City   1.425620 0.05302413  Jinshi
4 Changde 21102      Li      County   3.474325 0.18908121      Li
5 Changde 21103   Linli      County   2.289506 0.11450357   Linli
                        geometry
1 POLYGON ((112.0625 29.75523...
2 POLYGON ((112.2288 29.11684...
3 POLYGON ((111.8927 29.6013,...
4 POLYGON ((111.3731 29.94649...
5 POLYGON ((111.6324 29.76288...
head(hunan2012,5)
# A tibble: 5 × 29
  County  City  avg_wage deposite   FAI Gov_Rev Gov_Exp    GDP GDPPC   GIO  Loan
  <chr>   <chr>    <dbl>    <dbl> <dbl>   <dbl>   <dbl>  <dbl> <dbl> <dbl> <dbl>
1 Anhua   Yiya…    30544   10967  6832.    457.   2703  13225  14567 9277. 3955.
2 Anren   Chen…    28058    4599. 6386.    221.   1455.  4941. 12761 4189. 2555.
3 Anxiang Chan…    31935    5517. 3541     244.   1780. 12482  23667 5109. 2807.
4 Baojing Huna…    30843    2250  1005.    193.   1379.  4088. 14563 3624. 1254.
5 Chaling Zhuz…    31251    8241. 6508.    620.   1947  11585  20078 9158. 4287.
# ℹ 18 more variables: NIPCR <dbl>, Bed <dbl>, Emp <dbl>, EmpR <dbl>,
#   EmpRT <dbl>, Pri_Stu <dbl>, Sec_Stu <dbl>, Household <dbl>,
#   Household_R <dbl>, NOIP <dbl>, Pop_R <dbl>, RSCG <dbl>, Pop_T <dbl>,
#   Agri <dbl>, Service <dbl>, Disp_Inc <dbl>, RORP <dbl>, ROREmp <dbl>
hunan_GDPPC <- left_join(hunan,hunan2012) %>%
  select(1:4,7,15)

By using left_join, the selected column (1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 15) of data frame hunan will be retained in the new one. Notably, the column geometry will be auto-saved for geospatial data.

Plotting a choropleth map

tmap_mode("plot")
tm_shape(hunan_GDPPC) +
  tm_fill("GDPPC", 
          style = "quantile", 
          palette = "Blues",
          title = "GDPPC") +
  tm_borders(alpha = 0.5) +
  tm_layout(main.title = "Distribution of GDP per capita by district, Hunan Province",
            main.title.position = "center",
            main.title.size = 1.2,
            legend.height = 0.45, 
            legend.width = 0.35,
            frame = TRUE) +
  tm_compass(type="8star", size = 2) +
  tm_scale_bar() +
  tm_grid(alpha =0.2)

Deriving Contiguity Spatial Weights

By and large, there are two types of spatial weights, they are contiguity wights and distance-based weights. In this section, you will learn how to derive contiguity spatial weights by using sfdep.

Two steps are required to derive a contiguity spatial weights, they are:

  1. identifying contiguity neighbour list by st_contiguity() of sfdep package, and

  2. deriving the contiguity spatial weights by using st_weights() of sfdep package

In this section, we will learn how to derive the contiguity neighbour list and contiguity spatial weights separately. Then, we will learn how to combine both steps into a single process.

Identifying contiguity neighbours: Queen’s method

In the code chunk below st_contiguity() is used to derive a contiguity neighbour list by using Queen’s method.

nb_queen <- hunan_GDPPC %>% 
  mutate(nb = st_contiguity(geometry),
         .before = 1)

The code chunk below is used to print the summary of the first lag neighbour list (i.e. nb) .

summary(nb_queen$nb)
Neighbour list object:
Number of regions: 88 
Number of nonzero links: 448 
Percentage nonzero weights: 5.785124 
Average number of links: 5.090909 
Link number distribution:

 1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9 11 
 2  2 12 16 24 14 11  4  2  1 
2 least connected regions:
30 65 with 1 link
1 most connected region:
85 with 11 links

The summary report above shows that there are 88 area units in Hunan province. The most connected area unit has 11 neighbours. There are two are units with only one neighbour.

To view the content of the data table, you can either display the output data frame on RStudio data viewer or by printing out the first ten records by using the code chunk below.

nb_queen
Simple feature collection with 88 features and 7 fields
Geometry type: POLYGON
Dimension:     XY
Bounding box:  xmin: 108.7831 ymin: 24.6342 xmax: 114.2544 ymax: 30.12812
Geodetic CRS:  WGS 84
First 10 features:
                               nb   NAME_2  ID_3    NAME_3   ENGTYPE_3
1                 2, 3, 4, 57, 85  Changde 21098   Anxiang      County
2               1, 57, 58, 78, 85  Changde 21100   Hanshou      County
3                     1, 4, 5, 85  Changde 21101    Jinshi County City
4                      1, 3, 5, 6  Changde 21102        Li      County
5                     3, 4, 6, 85  Changde 21103     Linli      County
6                4, 5, 69, 75, 85  Changde 21104    Shimen      County
7                  67, 71, 74, 84 Changsha 21109   Liuyang County City
8       9, 46, 47, 56, 78, 80, 86 Changsha 21110 Ningxiang      County
9           8, 66, 68, 78, 84, 86 Changsha 21111 Wangcheng      County
10 16, 17, 19, 20, 22, 70, 72, 73 Chenzhou 21112     Anren      County
      County GDPPC                       geometry
1    Anxiang 23667 POLYGON ((112.0625 29.75523...
2    Hanshou 20981 POLYGON ((112.2288 29.11684...
3     Jinshi 34592 POLYGON ((111.8927 29.6013,...
4         Li 24473 POLYGON ((111.3731 29.94649...
5      Linli 25554 POLYGON ((111.6324 29.76288...
6     Shimen 27137 POLYGON ((110.8825 30.11675...
7    Liuyang 63118 POLYGON ((113.9905 28.5682,...
8  Ningxiang 62202 POLYGON ((112.7181 28.38299...
9  Wangcheng 70666 POLYGON ((112.7914 28.52688...
10     Anren 12761 POLYGON ((113.1757 26.82734...

The print shows that polygon 1 has five neighbours. They are polygons number 2, 3, 4, 57,and 85.

One of the advantage of sfdep over spdep is that the output is an sf tibble data frame.

kable(head(nb_queen,
           n=10))
nb NAME_2 ID_3 NAME_3 ENGTYPE_3 County GDPPC geometry
2, 3, 4, 57, 85 Changde 21098 Anxiang County Anxiang 23667 POLYGON ((112.0625 29.75523…
1, 57, 58, 78, 85 Changde 21100 Hanshou County Hanshou 20981 POLYGON ((112.2288 29.11684…
1, 4, 5, 85 Changde 21101 Jinshi County City Jinshi 34592 POLYGON ((111.8927 29.6013,…
1, 3, 5, 6 Changde 21102 Li County Li 24473 POLYGON ((111.3731 29.94649…
3, 4, 6, 85 Changde 21103 Linli County Linli 25554 POLYGON ((111.6324 29.76288…
4, 5, 69, 75, 85 Changde 21104 Shimen County Shimen 27137 POLYGON ((110.8825 30.11675…
67, 71, 74, 84 Changsha 21109 Liuyang County City Liuyang 63118 POLYGON ((113.9905 28.5682,…
9, 46, 47, 56, 78, 80, 86 Changsha 21110 Ningxiang County Ningxiang 62202 POLYGON ((112.7181 28.38299…
8, 66, 68, 78, 84, 86 Changsha 21111 Wangcheng County Wangcheng 70666 POLYGON ((112.7914 28.52688…
16, 17, 19, 20, 22, 70, 72, 73 Chenzhou 21112 Anren County Anren 12761 POLYGON ((113.1757 26.82734…

Identify contiguity neighbours: Rooks’ method

nb_rook <- hunan_GDPPC %>% 
  mutate(nb = st_contiguity(geometry,
                            queen = FALSE),
         .before = 1)

Identifying higher order neighbors

There are times that we need to identify high order contiguity neighbours. To accomplish the task, st_nb_lag_cumul() should be used as shown in the code chunk below.

nb2_queen <-  hunan_GDPPC %>% 
  mutate(nb = st_contiguity(geometry),
         nb2 = st_nb_lag_cumul(nb, 2),
         .before = 1)

Note that if the order is 2, the result contains both 1st and 2nd order neighbors as shown on the print below.

nb2_queen
Simple feature collection with 88 features and 8 fields
Geometry type: POLYGON
Dimension:     XY
Bounding box:  xmin: 108.7831 ymin: 24.6342 xmax: 114.2544 ymax: 30.12812
Geodetic CRS:  WGS 84
First 10 features:
                               nb
1                 2, 3, 4, 57, 85
2               1, 57, 58, 78, 85
3                     1, 4, 5, 85
4                      1, 3, 5, 6
5                     3, 4, 6, 85
6                4, 5, 69, 75, 85
7                  67, 71, 74, 84
8       9, 46, 47, 56, 78, 80, 86
9           8, 66, 68, 78, 84, 86
10 16, 17, 19, 20, 22, 70, 72, 73
                                                                                        nb2
1                                     2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 32, 56, 57, 58, 64, 69, 75, 76, 78, 85
2                           1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 32, 56, 57, 58, 64, 68, 69, 75, 76, 78, 85
3                                                 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 32, 56, 57, 69, 75, 78, 85
4                                                             1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 57, 69, 75, 85
5                                                 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 32, 56, 57, 69, 75, 78, 85
6                                         1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 32, 53, 55, 56, 57, 69, 75, 78, 85
7                                                     9, 19, 66, 67, 71, 73, 74, 76, 84, 86
8  2, 9, 19, 21, 31, 32, 34, 35, 36, 41, 45, 46, 47, 56, 58, 66, 68, 74, 78, 80, 84, 85, 86
9               2, 7, 8, 19, 21, 35, 46, 47, 56, 58, 66, 67, 68, 74, 76, 78, 80, 84, 85, 86
10               11, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 82, 83, 86
     NAME_2  ID_3    NAME_3   ENGTYPE_3    County GDPPC
1   Changde 21098   Anxiang      County   Anxiang 23667
2   Changde 21100   Hanshou      County   Hanshou 20981
3   Changde 21101    Jinshi County City    Jinshi 34592
4   Changde 21102        Li      County        Li 24473
5   Changde 21103     Linli      County     Linli 25554
6   Changde 21104    Shimen      County    Shimen 27137
7  Changsha 21109   Liuyang County City   Liuyang 63118
8  Changsha 21110 Ningxiang      County Ningxiang 62202
9  Changsha 21111 Wangcheng      County Wangcheng 70666
10 Chenzhou 21112     Anren      County     Anren 12761
                         geometry
1  POLYGON ((112.0625 29.75523...
2  POLYGON ((112.2288 29.11684...
3  POLYGON ((111.8927 29.6013,...
4  POLYGON ((111.3731 29.94649...
5  POLYGON ((111.6324 29.76288...
6  POLYGON ((110.8825 30.11675...
7  POLYGON ((113.9905 28.5682,...
8  POLYGON ((112.7181 28.38299...
9  POLYGON ((112.7914 28.52688...
10 POLYGON ((113.1757 26.82734...

Deriving contiguity weights: Queen’s method

Now, you are ready to compute the contiguity weights by using st_weights() of sfdep package.

Deriving contiguity weights: Queen’s method

In the code chunk below, queen method is used to derive the contiguity weights.

wm_q <- hunan_GDPPC %>%
  mutate(nb = st_contiguity(geometry),
         wt = st_weights(nb,
                         style = "W"),
         .before = 1) 

Notice that st_weights() provides tree arguments, they are:

  • nb: A neighbor list object as created by st_neighbors().

  • style: Default “W” for row standardized weights. This value can also be “B”, “C”, “U”, “minmax”, and “S”. B is the basic binary coding, W is row standardised (sums over all links to n), C is globally standardised (sums over all links to n), U is equal to C divided by the number of neighbours (sums over all links to unity), while S is the variance-stabilizing coding scheme proposed by Tiefelsdorf et al. 1999, p. 167-168 (sums over all links to n).

  • allow_zero: If TRUE, assigns zero as lagged value to zone without neighbors.

wm_q
Simple feature collection with 88 features and 8 fields
Geometry type: POLYGON
Dimension:     XY
Bounding box:  xmin: 108.7831 ymin: 24.6342 xmax: 114.2544 ymax: 30.12812
Geodetic CRS:  WGS 84
First 10 features:
                               nb
1                 2, 3, 4, 57, 85
2               1, 57, 58, 78, 85
3                     1, 4, 5, 85
4                      1, 3, 5, 6
5                     3, 4, 6, 85
6                4, 5, 69, 75, 85
7                  67, 71, 74, 84
8       9, 46, 47, 56, 78, 80, 86
9           8, 66, 68, 78, 84, 86
10 16, 17, 19, 20, 22, 70, 72, 73
                                                                            wt
1                                                      0.2, 0.2, 0.2, 0.2, 0.2
2                                                      0.2, 0.2, 0.2, 0.2, 0.2
3                                                       0.25, 0.25, 0.25, 0.25
4                                                       0.25, 0.25, 0.25, 0.25
5                                                       0.25, 0.25, 0.25, 0.25
6                                                      0.2, 0.2, 0.2, 0.2, 0.2
7                                                       0.25, 0.25, 0.25, 0.25
8  0.1428571, 0.1428571, 0.1428571, 0.1428571, 0.1428571, 0.1428571, 0.1428571
9             0.1666667, 0.1666667, 0.1666667, 0.1666667, 0.1666667, 0.1666667
10                      0.125, 0.125, 0.125, 0.125, 0.125, 0.125, 0.125, 0.125
     NAME_2  ID_3    NAME_3   ENGTYPE_3    County GDPPC
1   Changde 21098   Anxiang      County   Anxiang 23667
2   Changde 21100   Hanshou      County   Hanshou 20981
3   Changde 21101    Jinshi County City    Jinshi 34592
4   Changde 21102        Li      County        Li 24473
5   Changde 21103     Linli      County     Linli 25554
6   Changde 21104    Shimen      County    Shimen 27137
7  Changsha 21109   Liuyang County City   Liuyang 63118
8  Changsha 21110 Ningxiang      County Ningxiang 62202
9  Changsha 21111 Wangcheng      County Wangcheng 70666
10 Chenzhou 21112     Anren      County     Anren 12761
                         geometry
1  POLYGON ((112.0625 29.75523...
2  POLYGON ((112.2288 29.11684...
3  POLYGON ((111.8927 29.6013,...
4  POLYGON ((111.3731 29.94649...
5  POLYGON ((111.6324 29.76288...
6  POLYGON ((110.8825 30.11675...
7  POLYGON ((113.9905 28.5682,...
8  POLYGON ((112.7181 28.38299...
9  POLYGON ((112.7914 28.52688...
10 POLYGON ((113.1757 26.82734...

Distance-based Weights

There are three popularly used distance-based spatial weights, they are:

  • fixed distance weights,

  • adaptive distance weights, and

  • inverse distance weights (IDW).

Deriving fixed distance weights

Before we can derive the fixed distance weights, we need to determine the upper limit for distance band by using the steps below:

geo <- sf::st_geometry(hunan_GDPPC)
nb <- st_knn(geo, longlat = TRUE)
dists <- unlist(st_nb_dists(geo, nb))

Now, we will go ahead to derive summary statistics of the nearest neighbour distances vector (i.e. dists) by usign the coced chunk below.

summary(dists)
   Min. 1st Qu.  Median    Mean 3rd Qu.    Max. 
  21.56   29.11   36.89   37.34   43.21   65.80 

The summary statistics report above shows that the maximum nearest neighbour distance is 65.80km. By using a threshold value of 66km will ensure that each area will have at least one neighbour.

Now we will go ahead to compute the fixed distance weights by using the code chunk below.

wm_fd <- hunan_GDPPC %>%
  mutate(nb = st_dist_band(geometry,
                           upper = 66),
               wt = st_weights(nb),
               .before = 1)

Deriving adaptive distance weights

In this section, you will derive an adaptive spatial weights by using the code chunk below.

wm_ad <- hunan_GDPPC %>% 
  mutate(nb = st_knn(geometry,
                     k=8),
         wt = st_weights(nb),
               .before = 1)

Calculate inverse distance weights

In this section, you will derive an inverse distance weights by using the code chunk below.

wm_idw <- hunan_GDPPC %>%
  mutate(nb = st_contiguity(geometry),
         wts = st_inverse_distance(nb, geometry,
                                   scale = 1,
                                   alpha = 1),
         .before = 1)