Soft clustering based on hybrid Bayesian networks in socioecological cartography

Abstract

The interactions between nature and society need new tools capable of dealing with the inherent complexity and heterogeneity of the territory. Traditional clustering methodologies have been applied to solve this problem. Although these return adequate results, soft clustering based on hybrid Bayesian networks, returns more detailed results. Moreover their probabilistic nature delivers additional advantages. The main contribution of this paper, is to apply this tool to obtain the socioecological cartography of a Mediterranean watershed. The results are compared to a traditional agglomerative clustering. © 2014 Springer International Publishing.