| Values of a variable observed over a delimited geographic area are called a ''surface''. The problem we investigate is how to compare measures of the same area observed at two or more Sampling times. It is important to recognise that two different null hypotheses can be tested about the surface. The first is that the corresponding values in the surfaces differ only because of measurement or sampling error. The second is that the underlying process that generated the surfaces is the same. In the first case, the surfaces should have the same shape and values, while in the second case the surfaces might have different values, but if they still have the same means, variances and autocorrelation structures, the null hypothesis cannot be rejected. To prove the... |
