Spatiotemporal Nearest Neighbor Analytics

Patterns of distribution of geographic phenomena, such as plants and animal populations, are the basis for researchers to understand the dynamics of geographical objects or events (henceforth geographic events) in the context of environmental influences. Nearest neighborhood index (NNI) is one of the earliest and easiest indices to describe a spatial distribution of geographic events. It uses the average nearest neighbor distance between events to assess how, and to what degree, the distribution of events or objects is clustered or dispersed in space. Such assessment of the degree of clustered or dispersion of a spatial pattern is then inferred and used to understand the mechanisms behind the spatial relationships among geographic events and their interactions with the surrounding environment.