Title Kriging with Nonparametric Variance Function Estimation
Authors Jean Opsomer, David Ruppert, Matt Wand, Ulla Holst, Ola Hössjer
Alternative Location http://www3.interscience.wi..., Restricted Access
Alternative Location http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j...
Publication Biometrics
Year 1999
Volume 55
Issue 3
Pages 704 - 710
Document type Article
Status Published
Quality controlled Yes
Language eng
Publisher INTERNATIONAL BIOMETRIC SOC,
Abstract English A method for fitting regression models to data that exhibit spatial correlation and heteroskedasticity is proposed. It is well known that ignoring a nonconstant variance does not bias least-squares estimates of regression parameters; thus, data analysts are easily lead to the false belief that moderate heteroskedasticity can generally be ignored. Unfortunately, ignoring nonconstant variance when fitting variograms can seriously bias estimated correlation functions. By modeling heteroskedasticity and standardizing by estimated standard deviations, our approach eliminates this bias in the correlations. A combination of parametric and nonparametric regression techniques is used to iteratively estimate the various components of the model. The approach is demonstrated on a large data set of predicted nitrogen runoff from agricultural lands in the Midwest and Northern Plains regions of the U.S.A. For this data set, the model comprises three main components: (1) the mean function, which includes farming practice variables, local soil and climate characteristics, and the nitrogen application treatment, is assumed to be linear in the parameters and is fitted by generalized least squares; (2) the variance function, which contains a local and a spatial component whose shapes are left unspecified, is estimated by local linear regression; and (3) the spatial correlation function is estimated by fitting a parametric variogram model to the standardized residuals, with the standardization adjusting the variogram for the, presence of heteroskedasticity. The fitting of these three components is iterated until convergence. The model provides an improved fit to the data compared with a previous model that ignored the heteroskedasticity and the spatial correlation.
Keywords metamodel, Heteroscedasticity, local linear estimation, runoff modeling, spatial correlation,
ISBN/ISSN/Other ISSN: 0006-341X

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