Exploring a valid model for the variogram of an isotropic spatial process

Abstract

The variogram is one of the most important tools in the assessment of spatial variability and a crucial parameter for kriging. It is widely known that an estimator for the variogram cannot be used as its representator in some contexts because of its lack of conditional semi negative definiteness. Consequently, once the variogram is estimated, a valid family must be chosen to fit an appropriate model. Under isotropy, this selection is carried out “by eye” from the observation of the variogram estimated curve. In this paper, a statistical methodology is proposed to explore a valid model for the variogram. The statistic for this approach is based on quadratic forms depending on smoothed random variables which gather the underlying spatial variation. The distribution of the test statistic is approximated by a shifted chi-square distribution. A simulation study is also carried out to check the power and size of the test. Reference bands, as a complementary graphical tool, are calculated. An example from the literature is used to illustrate the methodologies presented.