/ 16 TRANSURANIC ELEMENTS IN THE ENVIRONMENT 



are quite diverse, illustrating them in the same example stretches the analogies somewhat 

 and does not allow adequate coverage of the wide range of possibilities. The figure is 

 meant to portray surface soil concentration of some contaminant emanating from a point 

 source, such as a power plant stack or cooling tower. Figure 2 is a different summary of 

 the four objectives. 



Descriptive Sampling 



Descriptive sampling is the classical approach to sampling. The objectives are to estimate a 

 total or a mean for some variable (or set of variables) over a definite population. 

 Textbooks on the subject, perhaps more generally known as survey sampling, have been 

 available since the early 1950s. The textbook by Cochran (1963) is best known to 

 biologists, but there may now be 10 or 12 books on descriptive sampling. We have 

 become accustomed to hearing this methodology called "sampling for inventory" in the 

 studies of plutonium in soil at the Nevada Test Site. Inventory, however, is not a good 



1. INVENTORY 



COMMONLY KNOWN AS "DESCRIPTIVE' 

 OR "SURVEY" SAMPLING 



EXAMPLE 



STRATIFIED RANDOM SAMPLING 



2. PATTERN 



PRESENT APPLICATIONS MAINLY IN 

 GEOLOGY (PETROLEUM AND MINING 

 EXPLORATION) 



MAIN OUTCOME 



CONTOUR MAPS 



3. COMPARISON 



LIMITED ATTENTION IN SURVEY 

 SAMPLING TEXTS ("ANALYTICAL 

 SAMPLING") . . . CLOSE RELATION 

 TO ANALYSIS AND DESIGN OF 

 EXPERIMENTS 



EXAMPLES 



• ANALYSIS OF VARIANCE 



• ANALYSIS OF COVARIANCE 



4. MODELING 



MAINLY DEVELOPED IN INDUSTRIAL 

 EXPERIMENTATION (G.E.P. BOX 

 AND OTHERS) 



EXAMPLE 



ESTIMATE PARAMETERS IN TWO- 

 COMPARTMENT RETENTION MODEL 



BODY 

 BURDEN 



TIME 



Fig. 2 Some relevant statistical methodology. 



