Fit random forest spatial residual models for point-referenced data (i.e., geostatistical models) using random forest to fit the mean and a spatial linear model to fit the residuals. The spatial linear model fit to the residuals can incorporate variety of estimation methods, allowing for random effects, anisotropy, partition factors, and big data methods.
Arguments
- formula
A two-sided linear formula describing the fixed effect structure of the model, with the response to the left of the
~
operator and the terms on the right, separated by+
operators.- data
A data frame or
sf
object object that contains the variables infixed
,random
, andpartition_factor
as well as geographical information. If ansf
object is provided withPOINT
geometries, the x-coordinates and y-coordinates are used directly. If ansf
object is provided withPOLYGON
geometries, the x-coordinates and y-coordinates are taken as the centroids of each polygon.- ...
Additional named arguments to
ranger::ranger()
orsplm()
.
Value
A list with several elements to be used with predict()
. These
elements include the function call (named call
), the random forest object
fit to the mean (named ranger
),
the spatial linear model object fit to the residuals
(named splm
or splm_list
), and an object can contain data for
locations at which to predict (called newdata
). The newdata
object contains the set of
observations in data
whose response variable is NA
.
If spcov_type
or spcov_initial
(which are passed to splm()
)
are length one, the list has class splmRF
and the spatial linear
model object fit to the residuals is called splm
, which has
class splm
. If
spcov_type
or spcov_initial
are length greater than one, the
list has class splmRF_list
and the spatial linear model object
fit to the residuals is called splm_list
, which has class splm_list
.
and contains several objects, each with class splm
.
An splmRF
object to be used with predict()
. There are
three elements: ranger
, the output from fitting the mean model with
ranger::ranger()
; splm
, the output from fitting the spatial
linear model to the ranger residuals; and newdata
, the newdata
object, if relevant.
Details
The random forest residual spatial linear model is described by
Fox et al. (2020). A random forest model is fit to the mean portion of the
model specified by formula
using ranger::ranger()
. Residuals
are computed and used as the response variable in an intercept-only spatial
linear model fit using splm()
. This model object is intended for use with
predict()
to perform prediction, also called random forest
regression Kriging.
Note
This function does not perform any internal scaling. If optimization is not stable due to large extremely large variances, scale relevant variables so they have variance 1 before optimization.
References
Fox, E.W., Ver Hoef, J. M., & Olsen, A. R. (2020). Comparing spatial regression to random forests for large environmental data sets. PloS one, 15(3), e0229509.
Examples
# \donttest{
sulfate$var <- rnorm(NROW(sulfate)) # add noise variable
sulfate_preds$var <- rnorm(NROW(sulfate_preds)) # add noise variable
sprfmod <- splmRF(sulfate ~ var, data = sulfate, spcov_type = "exponential")
predict(sprfmod, sulfate_preds)
#> 1 2 3 4 5 6
#> 7.20709420 29.97610382 12.63403994 22.29915168 14.85211628 30.11851902
#> 7 8 9 10 11 12
#> 6.75121343 16.27706150 -2.18942325 12.22709064 10.04521554 11.11677116
#> 13 14 15 16 17 18
#> -0.99116549 15.25667845 13.71515905 12.98879396 20.62285809 -3.33794420
#> 19 20 21 22 23 24
#> 0.05116391 25.27716676 19.48845223 -4.91539820 4.53255660 -5.64102060
#> 25 26 27 28 29 30
#> 4.55116010 -10.38802285 12.77869222 11.47271020 18.85634794 7.92927322
#> 31 32 33 34 35 36
#> 5.54454469 9.26063641 16.22038068 -2.31492552 9.40237754 9.57107856
#> 37 38 39 40 41 42
#> 17.55486020 9.09413211 13.78084068 5.85094688 8.55376772 29.94295184
#> 43 44 45 46 47 48
#> 15.36372494 22.76814241 -0.10511850 11.14670761 13.19146006 13.98674196
#> 49 50 51 52 53 54
#> 16.88227816 1.66852596 17.62750274 12.15246529 -6.31643437 10.45968752
#> 55 56 57 58 59 60
#> 2.46017146 14.61181297 8.13925329 -5.13374986 16.35470813 21.30610987
#> 61 62 63 64 65 66
#> 10.01414219 32.67164884 -1.70920535 24.28674843 20.14332755 26.90220679
#> 67 68 69 70 71 72
#> 5.85234711 7.15476641 18.90941330 9.67478205 1.25508935 12.54552746
#> 73 74 75 76 77 78
#> 4.76182617 -0.03741894 -3.12941969 -7.49434302 24.36690723 -1.96925278
#> 79 80 81 82 83 84
#> 13.53995822 24.92688168 11.07479774 10.43132321 8.29187049 -4.71025329
#> 85 86 87 88 89 90
#> 6.77832958 6.58587792 10.32600658 -4.59673144 -2.05363435 14.58627575
#> 91 92 93 94 95 96
#> 1.82537275 6.27116360 4.86695311 20.33752276 7.20672468 22.62624400
#> 97 98 99 100
#> 21.20959799 28.53459450 22.51962258 11.96041110
# }