Abstract
This paper makes use of two sets of Census outputs for Northern Ireland – counts by (i) output areas (OAs) and (ii) 100 m grid cells. Population surfaces are derived from OAs using a kernel smoothing approach and the accuracy of these surfaces is assessed using the 100-m grid square product. The key contribution of this paper is in pulling together the benefits of a gridded population data source with local regression procedures to provide a more detailed assessment of surface modelling accuracy than possible in any previous studies.
Acknowledgements
Provision of the grid square data by the Census Office (part of the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency – NISRA) is acknowledged.