Developed originally to predict probability distributions of ore grades for mining operations,[1] it is currently applied in diverse disciplines including petroleum geology, hydrogeology, hydrology, meteorology, oceanography, geochemistry, geometallurgy, geography, forestry, environmental control, landscape ecology, soil science, and agriculture (esp.
Geostatistics is applied in varied branches of geography, particularly those involving the spread of diseases (epidemiology), the practice of commerce and military planning (logistics), and the development of efficient spatial networks.
[2] Geostatistics goes beyond the interpolation problem by considering the studied phenomenon at unknown locations as a set of correlated random variables.
By applying a single spatial model on an entire domain, one makes the assumption that Z is a stationary process.
In this framework, one can distinguish two modeling goals: A number of methods exist for both geostatistical estimation and multiple realizations approaches.