Survey design practical 6

Lecture slides for 12 May 2025

Design of distance sampling surveys

Designing surveys and determining effort to achieve objectives

Fundamental to safely making inference from transects you surveyed to the entire study area is a sound survey design that includes random allocation of survey effort.


Photo by ray rui on Unsplash

It is actually difficult for humans to do things that are actually random. Computerised methods make the process reasonably straightforward. Employing a randomised sampling design derived with this R package, means there is one less threat to the validity of your survey.

You have the opportunity to use shape files from two locations near St Andrews, one marine and one terrestrial, to design surveys. The marine study will use aircraft so considerations such as fuel load add “incentives” to produce the optimal survey design while allowing the aircraft to return safely to land. The terrestrial study deploys point transects into strata of a natural area.