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spsurvey is an R package for design-based statistical inference, with a focus on spatial data. spsurvey provides the generalized random-tessellation stratified (GRTS) algorithm to select spatially balanced samples via the grts () function. The grts () function flexibly accommodates several sampling design features, including stratification, varying inclusion probabilities, legacy (or historical) sites, minimum distances between sites, and two options for replacement sites. spsurvey also provides a suite of data analysis options, including categorical variable analysis (catₐnalysis () ), continuous variable analysis (contₐnalysis () ), relative risk analysis (relriskₐnalysis () ), attributable risk analysis (attriskₐnalysis () ), difference in risk analysis (diffriskₐnalysis () ), change analysis (changeₐnalysis () ), and trend analysis (trendₐnalysis () ). In this manuscript, we first provide background for the GRTS algorithm and the analysis approaches and then show how to implement them in spsurvey. We find that the spatially balanced GRTS algorithm yields more precise parameter estimates than simple random sampling, which ignores spatial information.
Dumelle et al. (Sun,) studied this question.