A penalized regression model for spatial functional data with application to the analysis of the production of waste in Venice province

We propose a method for the analysis of functional data with complex dependencies, such as spatially dependent curves or time dependent surfaces, over highly textured domains. The models are based on the idea of regression with partial differential regularizations. In particular, we consider here two roughness penalties that account separately for the regularity of the field in space and in time. Among the various modelling features, the proposed method is able to deal with spatial domains featuring peninsulas, islands and other complex geometries. Space-time varying covariate information is included in the model via a semi-parametric framework. The proposed method is compared via simulation studies to other spatiotemporal techniques and it is applied to the analysis of the annual production of waste in the towns of Venice province.