This study empirically tested the robustness of Bayesian Maximum Entropy (BME) in predicting spatiotemporal data, with an emphasis on skewness, sample size, and spatial dependency level. Simulated data, both Gaussian and non-Gaussian, were generated using the unconditional sequential simulation method, with sample sizes ranging from 100 to 500 at the interval length of 50 and varying skewness (0, 1, 3, 6 and 9) and spatial dependency levels (weak, moderate, and strong). Findings revealed sample size variations and spatial dependence levels did not significantly influence BME prediction’s Mean Square Error (MSE) and bias. While skewness significantly impacted MSE (p-value < 0.001), bias remained unaffected. Moreover, skewness and spatial dependence interactions affected both MSE and bias. Despite this, BME proved robust to sample size and skewness, demonstrating a negligible MSE on the graphical plot (heatmap).

Bayesian Maximum Entropy (BME) is increasingly used in predicting and mapping spatio-temporal data. However, studies that have fully evaluated its robustness empirically are rare. Therefore, this research examined empirically the effect of skewness, sample size and spatial dependency level using simulated data. We considered symmetric data, data positively skewed by 1, 3, 6 and 9, data with weak, moderate, and strong spatial dependency levels, and sample sizes from 100 to 500 at the interval length of 50. The results showed that the variation of sample sizes and spatial dependency levels do not affect the Mean Square Error (MSE) and bias of BME prediction. However, skewness affects the MSE of prediction but does not affect the bias. This result indicates that BME is robust to sample size and is unbiased. Despite the significant difference due to skewness, a graphical plot showed values of MSE close to zero, suggesting that BME can be considered robust to skewness.