Delineating functional territories from outer space
Delineating functional territories from outer space
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DOI：
10.1186/s40503-019-0066-4
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发表时间：
2019-05-16
影响因子：
0.5
通讯作者：
Vargas, Olga
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Berdegue, Julio A.;Hiller, Tatiana;Vargas, Olga
功能空间单元或功能区域的划分是区域科学和经济地理学的一个重要课题，因为许多因果关系的实证验证受这些区域的大小和形状的影响。本文提出了一种两步法功能领土的划定，并提出了三个发展中国家：墨西哥，哥伦比亚和智利的应用。该方法的第一步使用夜间卫星图像来识别城市连续体（城市群）的边界。当这些连续体延伸到多个城市时，我们将它们分组并重新定义为一个新的单一空间单元。第二步使用第一步的结果区域之间的双向劳动力通勤流计算不相似性指数，然后应用标准聚类程序来描绘确定的功能区域。我们的研究结果表明，使用夜间卫星图像，我们的方法可以更准确地定义功能区域，特别是在发展中国家或欠发达国家，在这些国家，关于劳动力通勤流动的官方数据往往过时或不可靠。
The delimitation of functional spatial units or functional territories is an important topic in regional science and economic geography, since the empirical verification of many causal relationships is affected by the size and shape of these areas. This paper proposes a two-step method for the delimitation of functional territories and presents an application for three developing countries: Mexico, Colombia and Chile. The first step of this method uses nighttime satellite images to identify the boundaries of urban continuums (conurbations). When these continuums extend over more than one municipality, we group and redefine them as a new single spatial unit. The second step calculates a dissimilarity index using bidirectional labor-commuting flows between the resulting areas of the first step and then applies a standard clustering procedure to delineate the definitive functional territories. Our results suggest that, using nighttime satellite images, our method can lead to a more accurate definition of functional territories, especially in developing or underdeveloped countries where the official data on labor-commuting flows are often outdated or unreliable.