Urban Spatiotemporal Intelligence for Predicting Recorded ECU911 Incident Volume and Local Hotspot Dynamics in Intermediate Territories

Administrative emergency records can support spatiotemporal analysis in territories that are rarely represented in urban-computing research, but recorded volume is not equivalent to population risk or underlying incidence. This study develops an integrated framework for characterizing and predicting ECU911 recorded incident volume in Loja and Zamora Chinchipe, Ecuador, from January 2015 to 30 June 2026. The analysis used 925,000 administrative rows; 905,038 fell within the prespecified study period, and 899,232 were retained for spatial analysis after date and coordinate control. Annual spatial analysis used a 1 km grid with 3414 active cells; k = 10 nearest neighbours, including self-neighbours; row-standardized weights; conditional permutations; and Benjamini–Hochberg adjustment. The main analysis used 999 permutations; additional sensitivity analyses used 199 permutations. Global Moran’s I ranged from approximately 0.461 to 0.524 (permutation p = 0.001). Local Moran’s I produced no significant clusters after adjustment, whereas Gi* identified a small number of local hotspots. Across the complete years 2015–2025, no cell was identified as a hotspot in at least 50% of years; temporal classes comprised 18 occasional, 7 consecutive, 4 sporadic, 1 new, and 3384 cells, with no pattern detected. Leakage-free random forest regression achieved MAE = 0.552, RMSE = 2.230, RMSLE = 0.285, and R2 = 0.982 in the temporal test, but for pooled spatial block cross-validation, these rates declined to MAE = 0.797, RMSE = 10.423, and R2 = 0.661. A high-count classifier using the upper quintile of positive monthly cell counts achieved F1 = 0.883, ROC–AUC = 0.998, and PR–AUC = 0.966 in the temporal test. The contribution lies in the dataset, the understudied territory, and the methodological integration rather than in algorithmic novelty.

Authors

Institutions

Publication Details

Journal
Smart Cities
Published
2026-08-26
DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/smartcities9090138
Primary Topic
Data-Driven Disease Surveillance
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
0.00

Funders

Controls
|||
ALL TIME
JAN
FEB
MAR
APR
MAY
JUN
JUL
AUG
SEP
OCT
article

Urban Spatiotemporal Intelligence for Predicting Recorded ECU911 Incident Volume and Local Hotspot Dynamics in Intermediate Territories

Yasmany García-Ramírez, Fabián Díaz, Xavier Merino-Vivanco, Wilman Merino-Vivanco
Smart Cities
Data-Driven Disease Surveillance
article

Urban Spatiotemporal Intelligence for Predicting Recorded ECU911 Incident Volume and Local Hotspot Dynamics in Intermediate Territories

Yasmany García-Ramírez, Fabián Díaz, Xavier Merino-Vivanco, Wilman Merino-Vivanco
article en

Abstract

Administrative emergency records can support spatiotemporal analysis in territories that are rarely represented in urban-computing research, but recorded volume is not equivalent to population risk or underlying incidence. This study develops an integrated framework for characterizing and predicting ECU911 recorded incident volume in Loja and Zamora Chinchipe, Ecuador, from January 2015 to 30 June 2026. The analysis used 925,000 administrative rows; 905,038 fell within the prespecified study period, and 899,232 were retained for spatial analysis after date and coordinate control. Annual spatial analysis used a 1 km grid with 3414 active cells; k = 10 nearest neighbours, including self-neighbours; row-standardized weights; conditional permutations; and Benjamini–Hochberg adjustment. The main analysis used 999 permutations; additional sensitivity analyses used 199 permutations. Global Moran’s I ranged from approximately 0.461 to 0.524 (permutation p = 0.001). Local Moran’s I produced no significant clusters after adjustment, whereas Gi* identified a small number of local hotspots. Across the complete years 2015–2025, no cell was identified as a hotspot in at least 50% of years; temporal classes comprised 18 occasional, 7 consecutive, 4 sporadic, 1 new, and 3384 cells, with no pattern detected. Leakage-free random forest regression achieved MAE = 0.552, RMSE = 2.230, RMSLE = 0.285, and R2 = 0.982 in the temporal test, but for pooled spatial block cross-validation, these rates declined to MAE = 0.797, RMSE = 10.423, and R2 = 0.661. A high-count classifier using the upper quintile of positive monthly cell counts achieved F1 = 0.883, ROC–AUC = 0.998, and PR–AUC = 0.966 in the temporal test. The contribution lies in the dataset, the understudied territory, and the methodological integration rather than in algorithmic novelty.

Smart CitiesVol. 9(9)
Universidad Técnica Particular de Loja (EC)
Universidad Técnica Particular de Loja
Sustainable cities and communities
Openalex Percentile: Top 10%
Data-Driven Disease Surveillance
AI Navigator

Ask Laika to Summarize, Analyze, and Connect papers live on the map.

Summarize Papers & Methodologies

Extract key findings, datasets, and comparative methods across publications.

Benchmark Rankings & Visual Analytics

Rank top research institutions, authors, funders, topics, and journals by Field-Weighted Citation Impact (FWCI) and paper volume with instant charts.

Connect Distant Disciplines

Bridge topological clusters on the map to find hidden collaborative intersections.