Whenever adding one basic model does not really improve the validity of the LMC, it is advisable to use the lowest possible number of basic models. In practice, most of the LMC fits can be realized using only two basic models. The minimum number of basic models is obviously 1. In all instances it is the user who decides on the value of the Teta parameter, according to the results given by the simple variograms. All parameters corresponding to distances have to be expressed in meters.
Some phenomena display sharp variations fluctuation over very short distances.
This effect can be linked to the nature of the variable itself, as well as to instrumental errors. Since the observed values are all separated by a minimum distance, it is often difficult to decide whether such an effect has to be taken into account in the selection of the basic models. A first choice for the estimation of LMC should be based on two models of which one corresponds to the nugget basic model. The choice of the number and the type of the models as well as their parameters can be modified after having examined how well the LMC fits the estimated variograms. Since short distance values happen to be the most critical for the subsequent estimations, particular importance should be given to the quality of the fit for this part of variogram.