TEMPORAL LAND‐USE PATTERN ANALYSIS WITH THE USE OF NEAREST NEIGHBOR AND QUADRAT METHODS1

N EAREST neighbor analysis as developed by Clark and Evans2 and Thompson3 has been successfully used by plant ecologists, but with less success and frequency by geographers. Geographers, such as Dacey4 and Berry,5 who have attempted to use this technique to measure map patterns, have criticized it for a number of reasons, the most prominent being insufficient rationale for objectively defining the study area. Nevertheless, I hope to show that the nearest neighbor method is a useful geographic tool if study conclusions "make sense" in light of expectations. Berry,6 Bachi,7 and others have suggested the use of standard distance measures, after Mahalanobis, in order to describe spatial patterns. However, these measures, geared mainly