DKNN: deep kriging neural network for interpretable geospatial interpolation

Geospatial interpolation plays a pivotal role in spatial analysis because it provides high-quality data support for various spatiotemporal data mining (STDM) tasks. However, statistical methods, such as kriging, face challenges in dealing with complex geo-big data. Additionally, deep-learning-based methods, despite their exceptional performance, suffer from limitations, such as poor interpretability. To harness the complementary advantages of these statistical methods and deep learning approaches, this study proposes a novel geospatial artificial intelligence (GeoAI) framework called deep kriging neural network (DKNN). The primary contribution lies in the development of an asymmetric encoder-decoder structure, which includes a deep-learning-based spatial encoder and a geostatistics-based kriging decoder. The spatial encoder consists of three specialized neural networks, whereas the kriging decoder relies on the proposed unified kriging system. During forward propagation, the kriging decoder leverage messages from the spatial encoder to generate interpolation weights for prediction. Conversely, during backward propagation, the kriging decoder guides the spatial encoder in learning interpretable knowledge. Experiments were conducted using both synthetic and practical datasets. The results demonstrate an average improvement of 20.18% in MAE, 25.04% in RMSE and 24.06% in MAPE when compared to the best-performing baseline method. Furthermore, these results confirm the superior interpretability of our DKNN framework.