Author(s)

Seyed Reza Rahnamay Touhidi¹, Ismael Davoudi^2*

¹East Azerbaijan Provincial Gas Company, National Iranian Gas Company, Tabriz, Iran.
²Department of Remote Sensing and GIS, University of Tabriz, Tabriz, Iran.

Unauthorized use of energy is the major source of the non-technical losses of the energy in developing countries. Gas theft as a kind of energy theft is an increasing issue in a number of countries particularly in developing countries. This study is an attempt to address the issue of gas theft through the deployment of Geographic Information System (GIS) capabilities (Spatial Analysis) to import external factors into the current gas theft detection methods, improve data mining processes, and offer some management solutions. To achieve the intended goals in the study, two types of data sources were collected and analyzed: internal data such as reported instances of gas theft, and some customer properties, and external data such as some demographic data. In order to analyze and modeling the gas theft and the relationships between variables we used Hotspot analysis, Ordinary Least Squares regression (OLS) and Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR) analysis with ArcGIS tools. The results from clustering test indicated that the gas theft is not a random phenomenon in all areas of Tabriz and there are underlying factors. Mapping clusters by the hotspot techniques suggested the locations of clusters and areas at risk. The results of the regression analysis illustrated the importance of external factors clearly. According to the results, we recommend a conceptual GIS framework to select high risk areas as a subset data for a meter data analysis. Results of this research are of great importance for GIS based spatial analysis and can be used as base of future researches.

GIS, Gas Theft, Spatial Statistics, Proactive Analytics, Tabriz City

Touhidi, S. and Davoudi, I. (2018) Spatial Analysis Applied for Gas Theft Modelling in Tabriz City, Iran. Journal of Geoscience and Environment Protection, 6, 1-19. doi: 10.4236/gep.2018.62001.