A Critical Review of Spatial Predictive Modeling Process in Environmental Sciences with Reproducible Examples in R

Spatial predictive methods are increasingly being used to generate predictions across various disciplines in environmental sciences. Accuracy of the predictions is critical as they form the basis for environmental management and conservation. Therefore, improving the accuracy by selecting an appropriate method and then developing the most accurate predictive model(s) is essential. However, it is challenging to select an appropriate method and find the most accurate predictive model for a given dataset due to many aspects and multiple factors involved in the modeling process. Many previous studies considered only a portion of these aspects and factors, often leading to sub-optimal or even misleading predictive models. This study evaluates a spatial predictive modeling process, and identifies nine major components for spatial predictive modeling. Each of these nine components is then reviewed, and guidelines for selecting and applying relevant components and developing accurate predictive models are provided. Finally, reproducible examples using spm, an R package, are provided to demonstrate how to select and develop predictive models using machine learning, geostatistics, and their hybrid methods according to predictive accuracy for spatial predictive modeling; reproducible examples are also provided to generate and visualize spatial predictions in environmental sciences.


<b>Citation:</b> Li, J. A Critical Review of Spatial Predictive Modeling Process in Environmental Sciences with Reproducible Examples in R. Appl. Sci. 2019, 9, 2048. https://doi.org/10.3390/app9102048

Simple

Identification info

Date (Creation)
2018-02-26
Date (Publication)
2025-02-10T01:03:45
Citation identifier
Geoscience Australia Persistent Identifier/https://pid.geoscience.gov.au/dataset/ga/129511

Cited responsible party
Role Organisation / Individual Name Details
Publisher

MDPI

 External Contact
Author

Li, J.

 External Contact
Name

Applied Sciences

Issue identification

Volume 9 Issue 10

Purpose

For an external journal

Status
Completed
Point of contact
Role Organisation / Individual Name Details
Point of contact

Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)

 Voice
Resource provider

Place and Communities Division

 External Contact
Point of contact

Huang, Z.

 Place and Communities Internal Contact
Spatial representation type
Topic category
  • Geoscientific information

Extent

Extent

N
S
E
W


Maintenance and update frequency
As needed

Resource format

Title

Product data repository: Various Formats

Protocol

FILE:DATA-DIRECTORY

Name of the resource

Data Store directory containing the digital product files

Description

Data Store directory containing one or more files, possibly in a variety of formats, accessible to Geoscience Australia staff only for internal purposes

theme.ANZRC Fields of Research.rdf

  • EARTH SCIENCES

Keywords

  • spatial predictive models

  • predictive accuracy

  • model assessment

  • variable selection

  • feature selection

  • model validation

  • spatial predictions

  • reproducible research

Keywords

  • Published_External

Resource constraints

Title

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence

Alternate title

CC-BY

Edition

4.0

Website

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/

Access constraints
License
Use constraints
License
Other constraints

© 2019 by the author

Resource constraints

Title

Australian Government Security ClassificationSystem

Edition date
2018-11-01T00:00:00
Website

https://www.protectivesecurity.gov.au/Pages/default.aspx

Classification
Unclassified
Language
English
Character encoding
UTF8

Distribution Information

Distributor contact
Role Organisation / Individual Name Details
Distributor

Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)

 Voice facsimile
OnLine resource

Link to Journal

Link to Journal

Distribution format

Resource lineage

Statement

Journal article for submission to Applied Sciences

Hierarchy level
Dataset

Metadata constraints

Title

Australian Government Security ClassificationSystem

Edition date
2018-11-01T00:00:00
Website

https://www.protectivesecurity.gov.au/Pages/default.aspx

Classification
Unclassified

Metadata

Metadata identifier
urn:uuid/2f71f19d-b047-47c1-8fbb-3f04c490414a

Title

GeoNetwork UUID

Language
English
Character encoding
UTF8
Contact
Role Organisation / Individual Name Details
Point of contact

Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)

 Voice
Owner

Brooke, B.

 External Contact
Point of contact

Huang, Z.

 Place and Communities Internal Contact

Type of resource

Resource scope
Document
Name

Journal Article

Alternative metadata reference

Title

Geoscience Australia - short identifier for metadata record with uuid

Citation identifier
eCatId/129511

Metadata linkage

https://ecat.ga.gov.au/geonetwork/srv/eng/catalog.search#/metadata/2f71f19d-b047-47c1-8fbb-3f04c490414a

Date info (Creation)
2025-06-20T01:38:56.237Z
Date info (Creation)
2018-02-26T05:59:41
Date info (Revision)
2025-06-20T01:39:47.389Z

Metadata standard

Title

AU/NZS ISO 19115-1:2014

Metadata standard

Title

ISO 19115-1:2014

Metadata standard

Title

ISO 19115-3

Title

Geoscience Australia Community Metadata Profile of ISO 19115-1:2014

Edition

Version 2.0, September 2018

Citation identifier
https://pid.geoscience.gov.au/dataset/ga/122551

 
 

Spatial extent

N
S
E
W


Keywords

feature selection model assessment model validation predictive accuracy reproducible research spatial predictions spatial predictive models variable selection
theme.ANZRC Fields of Research.rdf
EARTH SCIENCES

Provided by

Access to the portal

Associated resources

Not available