Linear spatial interpolation: Analysis with an application to San Joaquin Valley

The properties of linear spatial interpolators of single realizations and trend components of regionalized variables are examined in this work. In the case of the single realization estimator explicit and exact expressions for the weighting vector and the variances of estimator and estimation error were obtained from a closed-form expression for the inverse of the Lagrangian matrix. The properties of the trend estimator followed directly from the Gauss-Markoff theorem. It was shown that the single realization estimator can be decomposed into two mutually orthogonal random functions of the data, one of which is the trend estimator. The implementation of liear spatial estimation was illustrated with three different methods, i.e., full information maximum likelihood (FIML), restricted maximum likelihood (RML), and Rao's minimum norm invariant quadratic unbiased estimation (MINQUE) for the single realization case and via generalized least squares (GLS) for the trend. The case study involved large correlation length-scale in the covariance of specific yield producing a nested covariance structure that was nearly positive semidefinite. The sensitivity of model parameters, i.e., drift and variance components (local and structured) to the correlation length-scale, choice of covariance model (i.e., exponential and spherical), and estimation method was examined. the same type of sensitivity analysis was conducted for the spatial interpolators. It is interesting that for this case study, characterized by a large correlation length-scale of about 50 mi (80 km), both parameter estimates and linear spatial interpolators were rather insensitive to the choice of covariance model and estimation method within the range of credible values obtained for the correlation length-scale, i.e., 40–60 mi (64–96 km), with alternative estimates falling within ±5% of each other.