Using Self-Organizing Maps for Rural Territorial Typology

Abstract

This work assessed the capacity of the self-organizing map, an unsupervised artificial neural network, to aid the process of territorial design through visualization and clustering methods applied to a multivariate geospatial temporal dataset. The method was applied in the case study of Sergipe‘s institutional regional partition (Territories of Identity). Results have shown that the proposed method can improve the exploratory spatial-temporal analysis capacity of policy makers that are interested in territorial typology. A new partition for rural planning was elaborated and confirmed the coherence of the Territories of Identity.