Disaggregating Statistical Data at Field Level: An Entropy Approach

The objective of this paper is to present an entropy approach in order to disaggregate agricultural data (temporary and permanent crop’s areas) at a local level. It comprises several steps of application. In a first one, a HJ-Biplot methodology and a cluster analysis is implemented. In a second step an interactive procedure is developed to establish relations between the land use cartography and statistics, and then coefficients of data allocation for each variable are created. Finally, in a third step, in order to manage information inputs and guaranty consistency a minimum cross entropy process is implemented. The model was applied to the region of Algarve and showed satisfactory results since the estimated values revealed a good approximation to the true values.