A Framework for Interpolating the Population Surface at the Residential-Housing-Unit Level

Population surface information is essential for a broad array of geographical studies. Many areal interpolation methods have been developed for creating population surface data from decennial census data. This paper describes a new framework to interpolate population to the lowest spatial level, i.e., housing units, based on high-resolution geospatial imagery. The framework is fundamentally a dasymetric mapping process, comprising: (1) determination of the basic dasymetric unit; (2) extracting the basic units; and (3) allocating population counts to each unit. An example was carried out to illustrate the promises and challenges of implementing such a framework using DOQQ, LIDAR, and parcel data.

人口表面信息对于广泛的地理研究至关重要。已经开发了许多区域插值方法，用于从十年一次的人口普查数据创建人口表面数据。本文描述了一个基于高分辨率地理空间影像将人口插值到最低空间层级（即住房单元）的新框架。该框架从根本上说是一个分区密度制图过程，包括：（1）确定基本分区密度单元；（2）提取基本单元；以及（3）将人口数量分配到每个单元。通过一个实例说明了使用数字正射影像象限图（DOQQ）、激光雷达（LIDAR）和地块数据实施这样一个框架的前景和挑战。