Citation:

Urquhart, M., W. Overton, AND D. Birkes. COMPARING SAMPLING DESIGNS FOR MONITORING ECOLOGICAL STATUS AND TRENDS: IMPACT OF TEMPORAL PATTERNS. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, D.C., EPA/600/A-93/196 (NTIS PB93222289), 1993.

Description:

This paper presents a comparison of two classes of sampling designs suggested for long-term environmental monitoring. one class is based on a rotating panel design that prescribes visiting a panel of sites for several consecutive years with partial replacement of sites each year; the other class is based on a serially alternating design which prescribes returning to sampling sites every four years. andom effects linear model is used to investigate and compare the proposed sampling designs because the sites to be visited and the years of visits may manifest substantial random contributions. e find that large enough sample sizes neutralize the effects of both site variation and measurement variation, so that the two designs perform similarly. owever, the class of designs based on the serially alternating design lead to more precise estimates of current status and of trends in the ecological resource when the site components of variance is substantially greater than the year component and/or when the sample sizes are smaller. he latter case in important because small sample sizes are anticipated when identifying populations at risk, or more generally when drawing inferences to subpopulations.

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