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Trade-off Tool for Sampling
Citation:
Boe, T., W. Calfee, E. Silvestri, S. Lee, L. Mickelsen, M. Rodgers, AND C. Schwind. Trade-off Tool for Sampling. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, DC, 2021.
Impact/Purpose:
EPA’s Center for Environmental Solutions and Emergency Response (CESER) within the Office of Research and Development (ORD) conducts applied, stakeholder-driven research and provides responsive technical support to help solve the Nation’s environmental challenges. The Center’s research focuses on innovative approaches to address environmental challenges associated with the built environment. CESER develops technologies and decision-support tools to help safeguard public water systems and groundwater, guide sustainable materials management, remediate sites from traditional contamination sources and emerging environmental stressors, and address potential threats from terrorism and natural disasters. In order to collect the data necessary to assess the efficacy of remediation efforts following a biological contamination incident, a well-defined and thorough sampling and analysis plan (SAP) needs to be developed and implemented. A large-scale release can result in contamination of a wide area and would require significant time and resources for recovery. As one of the components that go into SAP development, responders will need to select a sampling design that will address the site-specific objectives, meet the clearance goals, and not exceed the available resources (cost and time).
Description:
A probability-based sampling design can be used to create statistically defensible sampling plans. However, these plans may have sampling collection and/or processing demands that exceed allotted resources. Targeted sampling designs, also referred to as judgmental sampling, use professional judgement and interpretation and targets sample locations with some attribute of interest, such as a known area of contamination or areas near the suspected contaminant release point. A targeted-based sampling design may allow responders to quickly determine if an area is contaminated, reducing the overall response costs and recovery time. A combined targeted and random (CTR) sampling design may be used to obtain statistically-sound conclusions while including targeted sampling in areas that are most likely contaminated. To support remediation activities implemented during the Consequence Management Phase of a biological response, EPA’s Homeland Security Research Program developed the Trade-off Tool for Sampling (TOTS). TOTS allows users to create sampling designs and estimate the associated resource demand through interactive, point-and-click tools to visually develop sampling plans for biological contamination sampling and may cover other contaminants in the future. Users can plot sample locations in conjunction with externally developed indoor or outdoor imagery that can be imported into the tool. Based on the plans designed, TOTS estimates the total time and cost necessary for implementation, which includes sampling kit preparation, conducting the sampling campaign, and lab analyses. The resulting sample plan can be used to consider trade-offs in one’s sampling design (i.e., cost-benefit analysis), alternate sampling approaches (i.e., traditional vs. innovative sampling methods), and sampling coverage.
URLs/Downloads:
TRADE-OFF TOOL FOR SAMPLING USERS GUIDE.PDF (PDF, NA pp, 1818.448 KB, about PDF)https://tots.epa.gov/