Spatial Analysis in the CPC Ecuador Projects
The basis for spatial analysis in this project revolves around
the ability to link spatial and non-spatial data within a Geographic
Information System (GIS). As an inherently aspatial project at its
inception in 1990, the incorporation of a spatial component in 1999
added a new and exciting dimension to this longitudinal study. The
first step in the spatial process was the development of a database
of digital geographic (also referred to as geospatial or
simply spatial) data. After the database was built, analyses
could commence.
Given the complete lack of any available digital geographic data
for this region, our entire database had to be developed from the
ground up. There were (and still are) three key components to the
capture and creation of spatial data in this project: topographic
maps, remotely sensed satellite imagery and aerial photographs,
and the Global Positioning System (GPS). These three components
provided us with the foundation for generating nearly all of our
base spatial data. The medium-resolution satellite imagery gives
us a region-wide view of the study area over the course of three
decades, while the high-resolution satellite imagery and aerial
photos give us a finer detailed look at the ground. The Global Positioning
System allowed us to capture accurate coordinates for households,
land parcel boundaries, community centers, areas of land use and
land cover (LULC), and other features of interest. And the topographic
maps filled in the remaining gaps by allowing us to digitize roads,
rivers, town locations, and elevation contours.
Digitizing efforts convert map features to digital data
Typical GPS receivers like these are used to
collect coordinates in the field
The end result is a robust database containing vector and raster
GIS data, satellite imagery, scanned air photos, and non-spatial
survey data. Through the use of GIS software, we have been able
to execute a wide variety of analyses on this database in order
to explore our many questions regarding the interaction of socio-economic
and demographic (SED) variables and LULC change.
The Spatial Analysis component of this website contains many pages
with information on the spatial side of the CPC Ecuador Projects.
Use the sidebar on the left to navigate to these pages for more
information on the GIS analyses, the collection and utilization
of GPS data, remote sensing processing and analyses, creation and
use of survey instruments and sketch maps, and cellular automata
(CA) modeling. Other pages contain a detailed description of the
spatial database, a list of metadata for all of our data sets, and
a data distribution page.
