The Find Hot Spots tool identifies statistically significant spatial clustering of high values (hot spots) and low values (cold spots) or data counts using the Getis-Ord Gi* statistic.
Learn more about how Find Hot Spots works
Examples
Example uses of this tool include the following:
- The local police department wants to identify where there are clusters of violent crimes and high unemployment rate in the city. The department will use the results to select high schools that would benefit most from its summer job program. The department uses the Find Hot Spots tool to identify statistically significant violent crime and unemployment hot spots.
- A conservation officer wants to identify where there are clusters of diseased trees in the forest. The officer will use the results to direct their treatment and conservation efforts. They use the Find Hot Spots tool to identify the regions with statistically significant diseased (hot spots) and healthy (cold spots) trees.
Usage notes
Find Hot Spots includes configurations for input features, hot spot settings, and the result layer.
Input features
The Input features group includes the following parameter:
- Input layer specifies the layer that contains the point or polygon features that will be analyzed with hot spot analysis.
Hot spot settings
The Hot spot settings group includes the following parameters:
- Variable type determines whether hot spot analysis is performed on the feature counts or values. The options are as follows:
- Field— Hot spot analysis will be applied to the values of the field specified by Analysis field.
- Point counts— Point features will be aggregated into polygons or cells and counted. Hot spot analysis will be applied to the aggregated point counts. This option is available when Input layer is a point layer.
- Analysis field specifies the field that will be analyzed for clusters of high values (hot spots) and low values (cold spots).
- Divided by field specifies the field that will be used to divide the values selected by the Analysis field, if Variable type is Field, or the aggregated point counts, if Variable type is Point counts.
Aggregation shape type specifies the shape of the cells within which the point features will be aggregated. This parameter is available when Variable type is Point counts.
The options are as follows:- Fishnet cells—Point features will be aggregated within fishnet cells.
- Hexagon cells—Point features will be aggregated within hexagon cells.
- Polygon layer—Point features will be aggregated within polygon features specified by the Aggregation polygon layer.
- Aggregation polygon layer specifies the layer that contains the polygon features within which the points will be aggregated. This parameter is available when Aggregation shape type is Polygon layer.
- Define where points are possible specifies the layer that will define the extent of the hot spot analysis. Points that fall outside of the bounds of the layer will not be included in the hot spot analysis. This parameter is available when Aggregation shape type is either Fishnet cells or Hexagon cells.
- Cell size is a numeric value that defines the length of a side of each cell specified by the Aggregation shape type.
- Cell size unit specifies the units of the Cell size. Supported units include feet, miles, meters, and kilometers.
- Distance band is a numeric value that defines the distance from a target feature that will be included in a target feature's neighborhood. All of the features that fall within the distance band will be included in the target feature's neighborhood. The entire neighborhood will be analyzed to determine whether the target feature is a statistically significant hot or cold spot.
- Distance band unit specifies the units of the Distance band. Supported units include feet, miles, meters, and kilometers.
Result layer
The Result layer group includes the following parameters:
- Output name determines the name of the layer that is created and added to the map. The name must be unique. If a layer with the same name already exists in your organization, the tool will fail and you will be prompted to use a different name.
- Save in folder specifies the name of a folder in My Content where the result is saved.
Limitations
The following limitations apply to the tool:
- If the Variable type is Point counts, the following limitations apply:
- The Input layer must contain at least 60 features.
- At a minimum, 30 aggregation cells or polygons must contain at least one point feature.
- The point counts within the aggregation cells or polygons cannot be identical. There must be variation in the point counts between aggregation cells or polygons.
- If the Variable type is Analysis field, the following limitations apply:
- At a minimum, 30 features must contain non-null values in the specified Analysis field.
- The values in the specified Analysis field cannot be identical. There must be variation in the values.
- At a minimum, 30 points must fall within the bounding area specified by Define where points are possible.
- The Cell size cannot exceed the Distance band.
Environments
Analysis environment settings are additional parameters that affect a tool's results. You can access the tool's analysis environment settings from the Environment settings parameter group.
This tool honors the following analysis environments:
Credits
This tool consumes credits.
Use Estimate credits to calculate the number of credits that will be required to run the tool. For more information, see Understand credits for spatial analysis.
Outputs
The tool outputs a layer where the features are the input features or the aggregation cells or polygons containing at least one point. The layer contains the results of the hot spot analysis. It includes a field for the p-value, z-score, confidence level bin, statistical significance, and the number of neighbors used in the analysis.
Licensing requirements
This tool requires the following licensing and configurations:
- Creator or GIS Professional user type
- Publisher, Facilitator, or Administrator role, or an equivalent custom role
Resources
Use the following resources to learn more:
- Find Hot Spots in ArcGIS Pro
- Hot Spot Analysis (Getis-Ord Gi*) in ArcGIS Pro
- Find Hot Spots in ArcGIS REST API
- find_hot_spots in ArcGIS API for Python