In the world of spatial analysis, where data points are scattered across a landscape, a fundamental question arises: how can we estimate the value at a location we haven't sampled? For most geoscientists, the answer is kriging. Far more than a simple interpolation...
“From now on, space by itself and time by itself are doomed to fade away into mere shadows, and only a kind of union of the two will preserve an independent reality.” — Hermann Minkowski, 1908 More than a century after Minkowski made this observation, his insight...
A significant portion of the data analyzed geostatistically doesn’t consist of simple numerical values like temperature or elevation. Instead, we often deal with compositional data—parts of a whole that are constrained to sum to a constant. Think of a rock sample's...
Temporal trends are central in many fields—from epidemiology, economics, policy to environmental science. Being able to track how a variable changes over time, and link that change back to space or other covariates, is powerful. In BioMedware’s Vesta software, time...
In an era of rapidly expanding data and ever-shifting landscapes—both physical and digital—the ability to make sense of where things occur, when they occur, and why they occur has become ever more critical. That’s the realm of geospatial analysis: a set of tools,...
When analyzing data that changes across both time and geography, most researchers face a critical challenge: identifying exactly when and where significant trend shifts occur. Traditional GIS tools force you to choose between temporal analysis or spatial analysis—but...
What Are Blue Zones? Imagine living in a place where people routinely celebrate their 90th or even 100th birthday while remaining active and vibrant. These exceptional regions, where longevity isn't an anomaly but a community norm, are known as Blue Zones. First...
An Introduction to Environmental Monitoring and Geospatial Analysis How are humans impacting our environment? Public awareness of human impacts on the environment was significantly heightened by the publication of Silent Spring by Rachel Carson in 1962. The book...
In the 1980s, I began collecting geospatial data to support what would then turn out to be the first of two dissertation topics I pursued. I wanted to quantify forest transition models at different altitudes and chose the Sangre de Cristo mountains in New Mexico as a...
The wait is over. BioMedware just dropped the highly anticipated Vesta 2.5 update! The brilliant minds behind this geospatial analysis tool have been busy at work, crafting a release packed with new features, fixes, and improvements designed to make your data...