Geographic and Network Surveillance via Scan Statistics for Critical Area Detection

Abstract

Both statistical ecology and environmental statistics have numer- ous challenges and opportunities in the waiting for the twenty-first century, calling for increasing numbers of nontraditional statistical approaches. Both theoretical and applied ecology are using advancing data analytical and inter- pretational software and hardware to satisfy public policy and discovery re- search, variously incorporating geospatial information, site-specific data and remote sensing imagery. We discuss a declared need for geoinformatic sur- veillance for spatial critical area detection. We explore, for ecological and environmental use, an innovation of the circle-based spatial scan statistic popular in the health sciences.