Calculating Statistically Significant Hotspots Using the Hotspot Analysis Plugin in QGIS

Found this helpful? Buy me a coffee on Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/amdgs The ability to calculate hotspots is a useful function of GIS, but often the results are visual rather than statistically robust. This video looks at installation and use of the experimental 'Hotspot Analysis' plugin in QGIS, which allows you to calculate statistically significant hotspots in QGIS in a similar way to the Hot Spot Analysis (Getis-Ord Gi*) and Optimized Hotspot Analysis tools in ArcGIS. As well as using the Getis-Ord Gi* hotspot calculation technique, the plugin also has the option of Local Moran's I and Local Moran's Bivariate approaches for hotspot calculations. As well as providing tips on setup and installation, I also show you how to use the tool to produce hotspots for both polygon and point data. As this QGIS plugin cannot currently work on point density alone, some additional steps are needed to prepare for the hotspot analysis. The Hotspot Analysis plugin is experimental, so does require some additional installation steps beyond simply installing the plugin. Key steps can be found on the Hotspot Analysis plugin page in Github at https://github.com/danioxoli/HotSpotA..., but in addition I've found it necessary to comment out lines 43-48 of the __init__.py file, to prevent it attempting to load Pandas. If you find this video useful, please like and subscribe! Any problems drop me a comment and I'll do my best to help.