Semiparametric semivariogram modeling with a scaling criterion for node spacing: A case study of solar radiation distribution in Thailand

Abstract

© 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. Geostatistical interpolation methods, sometimes referred to as kriging, have been proven effective and efficient for the estimation of target quantity at ungauged sites. The merit of the kriging approach relies heavily on the semivariograms in which the parametric functions are prevalently used. In this work, we explore the semiparametric semivariogram where no close-form semivariogram is required. By additionally enforcing the monotonicity condition in order to suppress the presence of spurious oscillation, a scaling of the nodes of the semiparametric kriging is proposed. To this end, the solar radiation estimates across extensive but unmeasured regions in Thailand using three different semivariogram models are undertaken. A cross validation analysis is carried out in order to justify the performance of each approach. The best results are achieved by the semiparametric model with an improvement of around 7–13% compared to those obtained from the parametric semivariograms.