Geography

Methods to summarize change among land categories across time intervals

Document Type

Article

Abstract

Time-series maps have become more detailed in terms of numbers of categories and time points. Our paper proposes methods for raster datasets where detailed analysis of all categorical transitions would be initially overwhelming. We create two measurements: Incidents and States. The former is the number of times a pixel’s category changes across time intervals; the latter is the number of categories that a pixel represents across time points. The combinations of Incidents and States summarize change trajectories. We also describe categorical transitions in terms of annual flow matrices, which quantify the additional information generated by intermediate time points within the temporal extent. Our approach summarizes change at the pixel and landscape levels in ways that communicate where and how categories transition over time. These methods are useful to detect hotspots of change and to consider whether the apparent changes are real or due to map error.

Publication Title

Journal of Land Use Science

Publication Date

2017

Volume

12

Issue

4

First Page

218

Last Page

230

ISSN

1747-423X

DOI

10.1080/1747423X.2017.1338768

Keywords

category, flow matrix, GIS, land change, time, transition

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