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Economics of Sample Compositing as a Screening Tool in Ground Water Quality Monitoring
Author(s) -
Rajagopal R.,
Williams L.R.
Publication year - 1989
Publication title -
groundwater monitoring and remediation
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.677
H-Index - 47
eISSN - 1745-6592
pISSN - 1069-3629
DOI - 10.1111/j.1745-6592.1989.tb01130.x
Subject(s) - compositing , sample (material) , sampling (signal processing) , computer science , cost reduction , reduction (mathematics) , sample size determination , field (mathematics) , environmental science , data mining , statistics , artificial intelligence , mathematics , telecommunications , chemistry , geometry , management , chromatography , detector , economics , image (mathematics) , pure mathematics
Recent advances in high throughput/automated compositing with robotics/field‐screening methods offer seldom‐tapped opportunities for achieving cost‐reduction in ground water quality monitoring programs. An economic framework is presented in this paper for the evaluation of sample compositing as a screening tool in ground water quality monitoring. When the likelihood of occurrence of a contaminant in a well is very small, the use of sample compositing instead of routine exhaustive sampling will lead to reduction in analytical efforts. Such reduction will be maximum when there are no contaminated wells in the network. An N‐fold reduction will result when none of the wells in a network of N wells are contaminated. When 25 percent or more wells in a network are contaminated, the use of sample compositing will require, at the most, an additional 50 percent analytical effort compared to exhaustive sampling. A quantitative measure of the cost‐effectiveness of sample compositing as a screening tool is shown to be dependent on two factors: a ratio (f1) of laboratory analytical cost to that of well installation and field sampling costs and a ratio (f2) of the expected number of contaminated wells to that of the total number of wells in the network. Several useful mathematical results of primary interest are derived and illustrated with case examples in the paper. Selected areas for further research are also outlined.