SpatEntropy: Spatial Entropy Measures in R

This article illustrates how to measure the heterogeneity of spatial data presenting a finite number of categories via computation of spatial entropy. The R package SpatEntropy contains functions for the computation of entropy and spatial entropy measures. The extension to spatial entropy measures is a unique feature of SpatEntropy. In addition to the traditional version of Shannon's entropy, the package includes Batty's spatial entropy, O'Neill's entropy, Li and Reynolds' contagion index, Karlstrom and Ceccato's entropy, Leibovici's entropy, Parresol and Edwards' entropy and Altieri's entropy. The package is able to work with both areal and point data. This paper is a general description of SpatEntropy, as well as its necessary theoretical background, and an introduction for new users.