Random forest as a generic framework for predictive modeling of spatial and spatio-temporal variables.

ABSTRACT: Random forest and similar Machine Learning techniques are already used to generate spatial predictions, but spatial location of points (geography) is often ignored in the modeling process. Spatial auto-correlation, especially if still existent in the cross-validation residuals, indicates that the predictions are maybe biased, and this is suboptimal. This paper presents a random forest for spatial predictions framework (RFsp) where buffer distances from observation points are used as explanatory variables, thus incorporating geographical proximity effects into the prediction process. The RFsp framework is illustrated with examples that use textbook datasets and apply spatial and spatio-temporal prediction to numeric, binary, categorical, multivariate and spatiotemporal variables. Performanc

SUBMITTER: Hengl T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6119462 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature