Speaker
Description
During an on-site inspection (OSI), the collection and analysis of environmental samples in the inspected area is allowed by the Treaty and its Protocol. The procedures for the selection of the samples and their collection are described in the draft Operational Manual and in the related OSI documentation. A field mission must be carefully planned and, based on its objectives, the inspectors should establish the number of samples to collect to have an accurate representation of the area. The analysis of the representativeness of a sample is common in several disciplines: i.e, in pedology studies, in sociology, in forensic science, different methods are implemented to collect information on the investigated event. The minimum number of samples is based on several crucial factors, including the dimension of the site, the sample feature proportion, the phenomena associated with the dispersion, and the level of interest in the specific zone. Different statistical methods are applicable to determine a priori the number of samples for a specific trial, and we have compared some of them to find out the best suited for the OSI. We have compared different sampling techniques, as well as the statistical approaches to assess the achievable representativeness of environmental sampling during an OSI.
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