Abstract
The high costs of laboratory analytical procedures frequently strain environmental and public health budgets. Whether soil, water or biological tissue is being analysed, the cost of testing for chemical and pathogenic contaminants can be quite prohibitive.
Composite sampling can substantially reduce analytical costs because the number of required analyses is reduced by compositing several samples into one and analysing the composited sample. By appropriate selection of the composite sample size and retesting of select individual samples, composite sampling may reveal the same information as would otherwise require many more analyses.
Many of the limitations of composite sampling have been overcome by recent research, thus bringing out more widespread potential for using composite sampling to reduce costs of environmental and public health assessments while maintaining and often increasing the precision of sample-based inference.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
References
Boswell, M.T. and Patil, G.P. (1987) A perspective of composite sampling. Communications in Statistics, Part A - Theory and Methods, 16, 3069–93.
Burros, M. (1994) A study faults Mexican restaurants. New York Times, 19 July, p. A16.
Cline, S.M., and Severin, B.F. (1989) Volatile organic losses from a composite water sampler. Water Research, 23(4), 407–12.
Connolly, J. and O'Connor, F. (1981) Comparison of random and composite sampling methods for the estimation of fat content of bulk milk supplies. Irish Journal of Agricultural Research, 20, 35–51.
Dorfman, R. (1943) The detection of defective members of large populations. Annals of Mathematical Statistics, 14, 436–40.
Edland, S.D. and van Belle, G. (1994) Decreased sampling costs and improved accuracy with composite sampling. In Environmental Statistics, Assessment and Forecasting, C.R. Cothern and N.P. Ross eds Lewis Publishers, Boca Raton, pp. 29–55.
Elder, R.S. (1977) Properties of composite sampling procedures. Ph.D. Dissertation, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA.
Elder, R.S., Thompson, W.O. and Myers, R.H. (1980) Properties of composite sampling procedures. Technometrics, 22(2), 179–86.
Garner, F.C., Stapanian, M.A. and Williams, L.R. (1988) Composite sampling for environmental monitoring. In Principles of Environmental Sampling, L.H. Keith, (ed.), American Chemical Society, Washington, DC, pp. 363–74.
Gilbert, R.O. (1987) Statistical Methods for Environmental Pollution Monitoring. Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York.
Gore, S.D., and Patil, G.P. (1994) Identifying extremely large values using composite sample data. With Discussions by J. Warren, H. D. Kahn, and K. Campbell. Environmental and Ecological Statistics, 1(3), 227–45.
Gore, S.D., Boswell, M.T., Patil, G.P., and Taillie, C. (1992a) Studies on the applications of composite sample techniques in hazardous waste site characterization and evaluation: I. Onsite surface soil sampling for PCB at the Uniontown Site. Center for Statistical Ecology and Environmental Statistics Technical Report 92-0101, Department of Statistics, Penn State University, University Park, PA.
Gore, S.D., Patil, G.P. and Taillie, C. (1992b) Studies on the applications of composite sample techniques in hazardous waste site characterization and evaluation: II. Onsite surface soil sampling for PCB at the Armagh Site. Center for Statistical Ecology and Environmental Statistics Technical Report 92-0305, Department of Statistics, Penn State University, University Park, PA.
Lintner, T.J., Maki, C.L., Brame, K.A. and Boswell, M.T. (1992) Sampling dust from human dwellings to estimate the prevalence of indoor allergens. Center for Statistical Ecology and Environmental Statistics Technical Report 92-0805, Department of Statistics, Penn State University, University Park, PA.
Mack, G.A., and Robinson, P.E. (1985) Use of composited samples to increase the precision and probability of detection of toxic chemicals. In Environmental Applications of Chemometrics, J.J. Breen and P.E. Robinson (eds), American Chemical Society, Washington, DC, pp. 174–83.
Messner, M.J., Clayton, C.A., Michael, D.I., Neptune, M.D. and Brantly, E.P. (1990) Retrospective design solutions for a remedial investigation. Supplement to Quantitative Decision Making in Superfund: A Data Quality Objectives Case Study. Hazardous Materials Control, 3(3), 18–27.
NOAA (1989) A Summary of Data on Tissue Contamination from the First Three Years (1986–1988) of the Mussel Watch Project. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Technical Memorandum, NOS OMA 49.
Orban, J.E., Lordo, R. and Schwemberger, J. (1990) Statistical methods for analyzing composite sample data applied to EPA's human monitoring program. Technical Report EPA/OTS Contract No. 68-02-4252.
Paasivirta, J. and Paukku, R. (1989) Use of composited samples to optimize the monitoring of environmental toxins. Chemosphere, 19, 1551–62.
Patil, G.P., Gore, S.D. and Sinha, A.K. (1994a) Environmental chemistry, statistical modeling, and observational economy. In Environmental Statistics, Assessment and Forecasting, C.R. Cothern and N.P. Ross (eds), Lewis Publishers, Boca Raton, pp. 57–97.
Patil, G.P., Gore, S.D., and Taillie, C. (1994b) Design and analysis with composite samples: A novel method to accomplish observational economy in environmental studies. Center for Statistical Ecology and Environmental Statistics Technical Report 94-0410, Department of Statistics, Penn State University, University Park, PA.
Rajagopal, R. and Williams, L. R. (1989) Economics of sample compositing as a screening tool in ground water quality monitoring. Ground Water Monitoring Review, 9(1), 186–92.
Rao, C.R. (1989) Statistics and Truth, Putting Chance to Work. International Co-operative Publishing House, Fairland, MD, pp. 118–19.
Rohde, C.A. (1976) Composite sampling. Biometrics, 32, 273–82.
Rohde, C.A. (1979) Batch, bulk and composite sampling. In Sampling Biological Populations, R.M. Cormack, G.P. Patil and D.S. Robson, (eds) International Co-operative Publishing House, Fairland, MD, pp. 365–77.
Schaeffer, D.J., Kerster, H.W. and Janardan, K.G. (1980) Grab versus composite sampling: A primer for the manager and engineer. Environmental Management, 4(6), 469–81.
Schaeffer, D., Kerster, H. W. and Janardan, K. G. (1982) Monitoring toxics by group testing. Environmental Management, 6(6), 467–9.
Watson, M.A. (1936) Factors affecting the amount of infection obtained by aphis transmission of the virus Hy. III. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Series. B., 226, 457–89.
Williams, C.J. and Peterson, R. G. (1978) Variation in estimates of milk fat, protein and lactose content associated with various bulk milk sampling programs. Journal of Dairy Science, 61, 1093.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Patil, G.P. Editorial: Composite sampling. Environ Ecol Stat 2, 169–179 (1995). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00456662
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00456662