Developing user-friendly spatial statistical analysis modules for GIS: An example using ArcView

Abstract

Although it is generally agreed that geographic information systems (GIS) should include more statistical analysis functionalities, the issues of which functionalities should be included and how to integrate statistical analysis with GIS are still widely debated. This paper, based on a brief review of what has been done in this area, points out that it is necessary and worthwhile to develop a user-friendly statistical module in GIS directly, provides an example to illustrate how this can be implemented in ArcView using Avenue, and indicates how GIS and spatial statistical analysis can mutually benefit from such a module.