{"title":"Assessing the effects of centroid assignment methods on measuring spatial accessibility","authors":"Kyusik Kim, Mark W. Horner","doi":"10.1111/tgis.13228","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"In an abstract sense, researchers have assumed that a population‐based centroid better represents a given polygon than a purely geometric centroid (GC) because it accounts for the internal distribution of the local population. In specific application contexts, when measuring place‐based spatial accessibility, for example, using a GC might be misleading because this practice could overestimate travel costs in large polygons; however, this assumption has not been quantitatively tested. In this article, we examine the role of centroid definition types by comparing the accessibility values of three different centroid estimation approaches. The analysis indicated that, in comparison to population‐based centroids, the GC typically underestimated accessibility values, particularly in sparsely populated polygons, and accentuated spatial disparities. The findings suggest that researchers need to pay more cautious attention to the potential impact of centroid methods when measuring spatial accessibility.","PeriodicalId":47842,"journal":{"name":"Transactions in GIS","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.1000,"publicationDate":"2024-07-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Transactions in GIS","FirstCategoryId":"89","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1111/tgis.13228","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"GEOGRAPHY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
In an abstract sense, researchers have assumed that a population‐based centroid better represents a given polygon than a purely geometric centroid (GC) because it accounts for the internal distribution of the local population. In specific application contexts, when measuring place‐based spatial accessibility, for example, using a GC might be misleading because this practice could overestimate travel costs in large polygons; however, this assumption has not been quantitatively tested. In this article, we examine the role of centroid definition types by comparing the accessibility values of three different centroid estimation approaches. The analysis indicated that, in comparison to population‐based centroids, the GC typically underestimated accessibility values, particularly in sparsely populated polygons, and accentuated spatial disparities. The findings suggest that researchers need to pay more cautious attention to the potential impact of centroid methods when measuring spatial accessibility.
期刊介绍:
Transactions in GIS is an international journal which provides a forum for high quality, original research articles, review articles, short notes and book reviews that focus on: - practical and theoretical issues influencing the development of GIS - the collection, analysis, modelling, interpretation and display of spatial data within GIS - the connections between GIS and related technologies - new GIS applications which help to solve problems affecting the natural or built environments, or business