Chapter 1 defines spatial analysis as a collection of statistical techniques that explicitly use the spatial referencing associated with each data value. It outlines how an observational scientist treats the world as a ‘natural laboratory’ by interrogating environmental processes along gradients of natural variation to invoke experimental variability. Interrogations can treat location as place and space for this purpose. Processes such as diffusion, dispersal, marine species interactions and environmental controls produce spatial patterns in coastal environments that are spatially autocorrelated (their characteristics at proximate locations are more similar than their distant counterparts). This makes it desirable to analyse them using spatial methods. Coastal spatial analysis incorporates many disciplines that contribute distinct tools and methods for analysis, e.g. landscape ecology and coastal morphodynamics. Coastal environments present some unique challenges to their analysis, particularly regarding tides and weather.