Guiding Geospatial Analysis Processes in Dealing with Modifiable Areal Unit Problems

Geospatial analysis has been widely applied in different domains for critical decision making. However, the results of spatial analysis are often plagued with uncertainties due to measurement errors, choice of data representations, and unintended transformation artifacts. A well known example of such problems is the Modifiable Areal Unit Problem (MAUP) which has well documented effects on the outcome of spatial analysis on area-aggregated data. Existing methods for addressing the effects of MAUP are limited, are technically complex, and are often inaccessible to practitioners. As a result, analysts tend to ignore the effects of MAUP in practice due to lack of expertise, high cognitive loads, and resource limitations. To address these challenges, this paper proposes a machine-guidance approach to augment the analyst's capacity in mitigating the effect of MAUP. Based on an analysis of practical challenges faced by human analysts, we identified multiple opportunities for the machine to guide the analysts by alerting to the rise of MAUP, assessing the impact of MAUP, choosing mitigation methods, and generating visual guidance messages using GIS functions and tools. For each of the opportunities, we characterize the behavior patterns and the underlying guidance strategies that generate the behavior. We illustrate the behavior of machine guidance using a hotspot analysis scenario in the context of crime policing, where MAUP has strong effects on the patterns of crime hotspots. Finally, we describe the computational framework used to build a prototype guidance system and identify a number of research questions to be addressed. We conclude by discussing how the machine guidance approach could be an answer to some of the toughest problems in geospatial analysis.