R help - Feb 2010 - Bayesian Block Kriging?

Hello,
     I'm interested in doing Bayesian kriging using R.  I see that the 
package geoR has a function that will allow one to do this 
(krige.bayes).  However, my data are not in the form of points, but 
rather they are blocks that represent spatial averages (i.e., the number 
of fishing hooks per month in a given lat x long square).  I am 
therefore interested in treating the data as spatial blocks, rather than 
points.  I see that package gstat has a function that will allow one to 
do block kriging (krige).  However, I cannot find a function that will 
allow me to do both, Bayesian and block kriging at the same time.  My 
questions are:

1) Can the function "krige.bayes" be made to accommodate data in areal
form (rather than point data)? or
2) Does the function "krige" allow for Bayesian inference (i.e.,
priors,
posteriors)? or
3) Is there another package that can do both? or
4) Is there a method for combining functions to do what I would like to do?

A response to any and/or all of these questions would be greatly 
appreciated.  Thank you in advance.

Candan Soykan
candan.soykan at noaa.gov

Hi Candan,

As a more general remark, there is a mailing list for spatial data, 
including interpolation, r-sig-geo. This question would be more 
appropriate there. I gave some answers in-line below from what I could 
come up with. Reposting on r-sig-geo would be  a good idea to get more 
response.

cheers,
Paul

Candan Soykan wrote:
> Hello,
>     I'm interested in doing Bayesian kriging using R.  I see that the 
> package geoR has a function that will allow one to do this 
> (krige.bayes).  However, my data are not in the form of points, but 
> rather they are blocks that represent spatial averages (i.e., the 
> number of fishing hooks per month in a given lat x long square).  I am 
> therefore interested in treating the data as spatial blocks, rather 
> than points.  I see that package gstat has a function that will allow 
> one to do block kriging (krige).  However, I cannot find a function 
> that will allow me to do both, Bayesian and block kriging at the same 
> time.  My questions are:
>
> 1) Can the function "krige.bayes" be made to accommodate data in
areal
> form (rather than point data)? or
possibly, I've never used krige.bayes
> 2) Does the function "krige" allow for Bayesian inference (i.e., 
> priors, posteriors)? or
to my knowledge, no
> 3) Is there another package that can do both? or
I think not
> 4) Is there a method for combining functions to do what I would like 
> to do?
write a new function that combines both things you want (you question is 
a bit vague)
>
> A response to any and/or all of these questions would be greatly 
> appreciated.  Thank you in advance.
>
> Candan Soykan
> candan.soykan at noaa.gov
>
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-- 
Drs. Paul Hiemstra
Department of Physical Geography
Faculty of Geosciences
University of Utrecht
Heidelberglaan 2
P.O. Box 80.115
3508 TC Utrecht
Phone:  +3130 274 3113 Mon-Tue
Phone:  +3130 253 5773 Wed-Fri
http://intamap.geo.uu.nl/~paul