Investigating spatial scan statistics for multivariate functional data

Abstract: This paper introduces new scan statistics for multivariate functional data indexed in space. The new methods are derivated from a MANOVA test statistic for functional data, an adaptation of the Hotelling T2-test statistic, and a multivariate extension of the Wilcoxon rank-sum test statistic. In a simulation study, the latter two methods present very good performances and the adaptation of the functional MANOVA also shows good performances for a normal distribution. Our methods detect more accurate spatial clusters than an existing nonparametric functional scan statistic. Lastly we applied the methods on multivariate functional data to search for spatial clusters of abnormal daily concentrations of air pollutants in the north of France in May and June 2020.