Detection of Local and Global Outliers in Spatial Data

Spatial data are characterized by statistical units, with known geographical positions, on which non spatial attributes are measured. Two types of atypical observations can be defined: global and/or local outliers. The attribute values of a global outlier are outlying with respect to the values taken by the majority of the data points while the attribute values of a local outlier are extreme when compared to those of its neighbors. Classical outlier detection techniques may be used to find global outliers as the geographical positions of the data is not taken into account in this search. The detection of local outliers is more complex especially when there are more than one non spatial attribute. In this talk, existing techniques were outlined and two new procedures were defined. The first approach is to adapt an existing technique using in particular a regularized estimator of the covariance matrix. The second technique measures outlyingness using depth function.