Environmental Resource Survey

On successful completion of this short course you will be able to:

• Identify the objective of a survey of the environment
• Determine the appropriate survey method to undertake an assessment of environmental resources
• Evaluate existing information and models which complement the survey method
• Design and conduct field surveys for data collection and verification
• Select and carry out appropriate modelling and statistical analyses
• Assess the accuracy of results
• Summarise and present results of a survey for users effectively.

• Introduction to geographical resource survey. Why, when, where and how? Understanding constraints
• Survey strategies for environmental resources: census with thematic mapping, ground sampling, sampling with property mapping, integrated ground sampling and property mapping
• Development of classification schemes – user requirements, data availability, class definitions
• Sampling and rapid estimates for plant communities, water and soil quality – biomass, cover and species assessment, count plot methods, plotless sample technique, soil and water survey techniques
• Assessment of existing data quality and use in survey design
• Statistical design and analysis for environmental resource surveys: area frames, point samples, bulk samples, area samples, sampling at global scales, multi-scale sampling
• Quality assessment of environmental data – accuracy measures, effect of bias, quality measures and statistics, error and uncertainty sources and measures
• Introduction to interpolation methods, generating maps from point survey data
• Integration data sources and types (data fusion) and statistical models with survey data (model data fusion) to increase survey cost effectiveness
• Review of example surveys.