Spatial Statistics

Cartographic Skills - Mod 5

This week's assignment on Spatial Statistics was an Esri Web Course.  We learned how to do an in-depth examination of our data's characteristics through the use of spatial statistic tools and ArcGIS Geostatistical Analsys tools.

Map of Weather Monitoring Stations in most of Western and Central Europe

This is a map of weather monitoring stations throughout most of Europe.  We used the ArcGIS tools of Mean Center, to calculate the mean center and Median Center to calculate the median center of our temperature data.  We then employed the use of the Directional Distribution (Standard Deviational Ellipse) tool to create a direcitonal distribution ellipse.  These tools are all located in Spatial Statistics Toolbox under Measuring Geographic Distributions.

This map was a little difficult to work with because of all the background noise.  Calculating the median and mean centers, and the directional distribution was very simple with the ArcGIS tools, but placing the map elements was a little more difficult because there was so little clear space.  To overcome my elements being washed out I added background fill where I could, in the Legend, the Scale and also in the text box with my explanation of the map.  I was a little surprise to see the background fill didn't completely fill the Legend frame, but I couldn't find any setting where I had caused that affect and actually, I liked the way it looked.  The North Arrow, Author and Date I put in as clean a spot as I could find, but it was difficult finding places for them where they would be visible yet balanced. 

I chose to go with a landscape view to provide more room for my elements while zoomed in as much as possible on the area of interest.  I did end up shifting the area of interest off center in order to make room for the descriptive textbox and the elements, but I felt the textbox and legend on the same side helped to keep the map in balance.

The source data text kept shifting around on me when I zoomed in and out trying to place some of my elements in its vicinity.  Eventually I decided to move my Author and Date text over by my Legend instead because even after adding a halo to it that text was not standing up against the background located near the Source Data text.  I didn't feel the Source Data text was very legible where it was either, but there was nothing I could do about that.

I chose to go with kilometers on my scale bar since the map was of European weather stations and I felt the target audience would most likely be European.