Applications of Trajectory Analysis to Describe Changes in a Time Series of Maps
A special issue of Land (ISSN 2073-445X). This special issue belongs to the section "Land Systems and Global Change".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 May 2026 | Viewed by 5038
Special Issue Editors
Interests: error assessment; land change science; simulation modeling; spatial analysis; statistics; uncertainty
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Trajectory Analysis is a new methodology that can be used to summarize the patterns in a time series. This method overlays a temporal sequence of raster maps of a non-negative variable for a spatial extent. For example, if users want to analyze a land cover category, then 1 represents the presence and 0 represents the absence of the category for each pixel at each time point. The outputs of Trajectory Analysis outputs maps and graphs that describe the spatial and temporal patterns of gross changes. Trajectory Analysis summarizes the sequence of changes in each pixel as one of eight trajectories concerning gross losses and gains during the sequence of time intervals. The method also synthesizes the changes in terms of three components: Quantity, Exchange, and Alternation. Alternation occurs when a pixel experiences both loss and gain during the time series. A free R package computes the results at multiple spatial resolutions, thus revealing the patterns of gross changes in space. In addition, the R package computes the results at multiple temporal resolutions, revealing the patterns of gross changes in time. The seminal paper concerning this methodology can be found at https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15481603.2024.2409484, a preliminary conference proceeding can be found at https://wordpress.clarku.edu/rpontius/wp-content/uploads/sites/884/2024/10/Pontius-Jr-et-al.-2023-Trajectories-of-losses-and-gains-of-soybean-cultiv-1.pdf, and the computer package in the language R is available for free at https://github.com/bilintoh/timeseriesTrajectories.
We invite authors to contribute to this Special Issue with original research and case studies that apply Trajectory Analysis. The aim of this Special Issue is to provide an overview of the applications of Trajectory Analysis so that we can determine its range of uses and interpretations. We are particularly interested in applications related to land change in Latin America, and especially those that employ MapBiomas data. Trajectory Analysis has been designed for any non-negative variable, which allows the proceure to analyze variables such as precipitation and biomas. Trajectory Analysis can provide insights into the quality of data, because it is effective in finding suspicious patterns. Therefore, Trajectory Analysis can aid in the early phases of creating a time series, and is particularly effective at cross-site comparisons.
Themes: Geographic Information Science, Land-use and Land-cover Change, Time Series Analysis
Article Types: Original Research, Case Studies
Prof. Dr. Robert Gilmore Pontius, Jr.
Dr. Thomas Mumuni Bilintoh
Guest Editors
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Keywords
- alternation
- GIS
- land change
- Latin America
- pattern
- resolution
- spatial
- trajectories
- temporal
- time series
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