Principles and methods of scaling geospatial Earth science data

Ge, Yong and Jin, Yan and Stein, Alfred and Chen, Yuehong and Wang, Jianghao and Cheng, Qiuming and Bai, Hexiang and Liu, Mengxiao and Atkinson, Peter M. (2019) Principles and methods of scaling geospatial Earth science data. Earth-Science Reviews, 197: 102897. ISSN 0012-8252

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Abstract

The properties of geographical phenomena vary with changes in the scale of measurement. The information observed at one scale often cannot be directly used as information at another scale. Scaling addresses these changes in properties in relation to the scale of measurement, and plays an important role in Earth sciences by providing information at the scale of interest, which may be required for a range of applications, and may be useful for inferring geographical patterns and processes. This paper presents a review of geospatial scaling methods for Earth science data. Based on spatial properties, we propose a methodological framework for scaling addressing upscaling, downscaling and side-scaling. This framework combines scale-independent and scale-dependent properties of geographical variables. It allows treatment of the varying spatial heterogeneity of geographical phenomena, combines spatial autocorrelation and heterogeneity, addresses scale-independent and scale-dependent factors, explores changes in information, incorporates geospatial Earth surface processes and uncertainties, and identifies the optimal scale(s) of models. This study shows that the classification of scaling methods according to various heterogeneities has great potential utility as an underpinning conceptual basis for advances in many Earth science research domains. © 2019 Elsevier B.V.