Evaluating Grid Size Suitability of Population Distribution Data via Improved ALV Method: A Case Study in Anhui Province, China

Dong Huang, Xiaohuan Yang, Nan Dong and Hongyan Cai
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Dong Huang: State Key Laboratory of Resources and Environmental Information System, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100101, China
Xiaohuan Yang: State Key Laboratory of Resources and Environmental Information System, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100101, China
Nan Dong: CIGIS (CHINA) LIMITED, Beijing 100007, China
Hongyan Cai: State Key Laboratory of Resources and Environmental Information System, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100101, China

Sustainability, 2017, vol. 10, issue 1, 1-15

Abstract: Accurate grid size suitability evaluations are necessary to enhance the spatialization quality of gridded population distributions. This paper proposes an improved average local variance (ALV) method to express discrepancies in population density and was validated in Anhui Province, China. A dataset consisting of 14 spatial scales, from 100 m to 900 m, and 1000 m to 5000 m, was processed by both the proposed and traditional ALV methods. Line graphs of two sets of ALV values and grid sizes were comparatively analyzed to evaluate the grid size suitability. The ALV trends calculated by the proposed method encompassed more accurate and useful features compared to the traditional method. The case study results showed that the 200 m grid size accurately expresses the population distribution characteristics of Anhui Province. The standard deviation (SD) index was adopted to validate these results; the proposed ALV method was proven valuable both in theory and practice for assessing grid size suitability. The method may be further improved by determining the essential laws of ALV values based on grid characteristics, and by enhancing the adaptability to various locations.

Keywords: evaluation; grid size; suitability; improvement; ALV; Anhui province (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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