Summary

SA is a method used to manipulate spatial data and to produce results. It is used for example to classify objects, to calculate the distance between them or to compute their area. The range of methods consists of the geometric and geostatistical analysis as well as the interactive methods of spatial visualization. In GIS, these methods are used in combination.

In geography, SA techniques have been used as quantitative methods since the 1960s and 1970s. Since the 1980s there has been an increasing convergence between the methods used in SA. Since the embedding of data acquisition, data modeling, data management and visualization methods into GIS, the data processing became more efficient. Initially, the development of analysis methods in GIS was focused on geometry. Thus the analysis was heavily focused on characterization of point distributions and networks. Only later the methods became more focused on intrinsic properties of the geographic space. But at that time, the specific characteristics of spatial variables such as heterogeneity of the measured values as well as the spatial dependence had been neglected. Nowadays, GIS incorporates a big range of geometric and geostatistical analysis functions. The functions of a spatial analysis include classification, distance calculation, area analysis, terrain modeling, visualization and others.