Geostatistical Global Estimates and Sampling Design

by Bruce E. Buxton, Battelle Memorial Inst, United States,



Document Type: Proceeding Paper

Part of: Hydraulic Engineering

Abstract:

In the environmental assessment of a contaminated site, several different evaluation criteria could be considered such as: estimation of the overall average contaminant concentration in the surface water, groundwater, or soil of the site; estimation of the overall proportion of the site that is contaminated; among others. This paper addresses these evaluation criteria, referred to as global estimations. A method is presented that constructs risk-qualified, confidence interval global estimates. This method takes into account the action threshold, the inherent spatial variability and correlation structure of the contaminant concentrations, and the number of samples upon which the estimates are based. In addition, this paper shows how the geostatistical global evaluation methods can be used to design sampling programs that will satisfy predefined limits on the accuracy of the estimates of the size and average concentration of the contaminated zone.

Subject Headings: Soil pollution | Groundwater pollution | Water pollution | Statistics | Site investigation | Pollutants | Surface water

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