Population georeferencing in England and Wales: basic spatial units reconsidered

In this paper the concern is with the increasing number of methods which are available for the georeferencing of population and socioeconomic data. The majority of routine users of such data will tend to treat georeferencing of a transparent process, and will not question the impacts which georeferencing methods may have on substantive applications. In this paper four levels of geographical resolution in England and Wales are considered, between the most detailed census geography and individual property locations, and the potential for the creation of hybrid georeferences by the combination of existing data products is explored. With examples from a study area in Cardiff, South Wales, the interrelationship of the major data products is explored, with reference to basic household counts and incidence data. On the basis of these experiments, the use of hybrid georeferencing systems is reconsidered, highlighting potential applications as well as problems of data standards, confidentiality, and comparability.