提出地理加权的不确定性评估框架,提升空间预测可信度。
GeoConformal prediction: a model-agnostic framework of measuring the uncertainty of spatial prediction
- 将地理权重融入分位数校准法,实现模型无关的空间不确定性评估。
- 在房价预测中覆盖率达93.67%,显著优于传统自助法的81.00%。
- 可揭示局部特征对预测不确定性的影响,指导模型设计。
空间预测是地理学基础任务。近年来,随着地理空间人工智能(GeoAI)的发展,众多模型被用于提升地理变量预测精度。除了提高准确性,获取带有不确定性度量的预测对增强模型可信度、支持负责任的空间预测同样重要。尽管地统计方法如克里金法提供一定程度的不确定性评估(如克里金方差),但其测量结果并不总准确,且难以推广至其他空间模型。为此,我们提出一种模型无关的不确定性评估方法——GeoConformal Prediction,将地理加权引入分位数校准。我们在两类经典空间预测场景中验证其可靠性:一是使用XGBoost预测房价,随后用GeoConformal计算不确定性,结果显示覆盖率达到93.67%;而自助法在2000次运行后最高仅达81.00%。二是应用于空间插值模型,发现GeoConformal所得不确定性与克里金方差高度一致。最后,通过该方法分析不确定性来源,发现显式引入局部特征可显著降低预测不确定性,尤其在局部依赖性强的区域。研究结果表明,GeoConformal不仅有助于地理知识发现,还可为未来GeoAI模型设计提供指导,推动更可靠、可解释的空间预测框架发展。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Spatial prediction is a fundamental task in geography. In recent years, with advances in geospatial artificial intelligence (GeoAI), numerous models have been developed to improve the accuracy of geographic variable predictions. Beyond achieving higher accuracy, it is equally important to obtain predictions with uncertainty measures to enhance model credibility and support responsible spatial prediction. Although geostatistic methods like Kriging offer some level of uncertainty assessment, such as Kriging variance, these measurements are not always accurate and lack general applicability to other spatial models. To address this issue, we propose a model-agnostic uncertainty assessment method called GeoConformal Prediction, which incorporates geographical weighting into conformal prediction. We applied it to two classic spatial prediction cases, spatial regression and spatial interpolation, to evaluate its reliability. First, in the spatial regression case, we used XGBoost to predict housing prices, followed by GeoConformal to calculate uncertainty. Our results show that GeoConformal achieved a coverage rate of 93.67%, while Bootstrap methods only reached a maximum coverage of 81.00% after 2000 runs. Next, we applied GeoConformal to spatial interpolation models. We found that the uncertainty obtained from GeoConformal aligned closely with the variance in Kriging. Finally, using GeoConformal, we analyzed the sources of uncertainty in spatial prediction. We found that explicitly including local features in AI models can significantly reduce prediction uncertainty, especially in areas with strong local dependence. Our findings suggest that GeoConformal holds potential not only for geographic knowledge discovery but also for guiding the design of future GeoAI models, paving the way for more reliable and interpretable spatial prediction frameworks.
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