The main goal of this study is an analysis of statistical and spatial relationships between land cover, relief andgeodetic control points’ location. We aimed at proving the previous results showing that in rural areas the density ofhorizontal geodetic points depends at least 50% on the land cover. Moreover, two clustering methods, k-means andKohonen self-organising maps, were used to group surveying districts according to similarity in land use, relief andgeodetic control density. The research methods includes statistical methods, ie. Pearson correlation and coefficient ofdetermination computed by Pawlowski method as well as spatial autocorrelation expressed by Moran I global index.The results show that both clustering methods give very similar results, however for the k-means the surveying districtsare more spatially clustered, than for Kohonen. The coefficient of determination R2 equals 0.652, what means that geodeticcontrol points density in 65.2% explains by the percentage of built-up areas, forests and the standard deviation ofelevation. The analysis was conducted for the 3rd order geodetic control points, for Opoczno district, located in the central partof Poland.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3846/enviro.2017.228