The need to understand and quantify change is fundamental throughout the environmental sciences. This might involve describing past variation, understanding the mechanisms underlying observed changes, making projections of possible future change, or monitoring the effect of intervening in some environmental system. This book provides an overview of modern statistical techniques that may be relevant in problems of this nature. Practitioners studying environmental change will be familiar with many classical statistical procedures for the detection and estimation of trends. However, the ever increasing capacity to collect and process vast amounts of environmental information has led to growing awareness that such procedures are limited in the insights that they can deliver. At the same time, significant developments in statistical methodology have often been widely dispersed in the statistical literature and have therefore received limited exposure in the environmental science community. This book aims to provide a thorough but accessible review of these developments. It is split into two parts: the first provides an introduction to this area and the second part presents a collection of case studies illustrating the practical application of modern statistical approaches to the analysis of trends in real studies. Key Features: Presents a thorough introduction to the practical application and methodology of trend analysis in environmental science. Explores non-parametric estimation and testing as well as parametric techniques. Methods are illustrated using case studies from a variety of environmental application areas. Looks at trends in all aspects of a process including mean, percentiles and extremes. Supported by an accompanying website featuring datasets and R code. The book is designed to be accessible to readers with some basic statistical training, but also contains sufficient detail to serve as a reference for practising statisticians. It will therefore be of use to postgraduate students and researchers both in the environmental sciences and in statistics.

The need to understand and quantify change is fundamental throughout the environmental sciences. This might involve describing past variation, understanding the mechanisms underlying observed changes, making projections of possible future change, or monitoring the effect of intervening in some environmental system. This book provides an overview of modern statistical techniques that may be relevant in problems of this nature. Practitioners studying environmental change will be familiar with many classical statistical procedures for the detection and estimation of trends. However, the ever increasing capacity to collect and process vast amounts of environmental information has led to growing awareness that such procedures are limited in the insights that they can deliver. At the same time, significant developments in statistical methodology have often been widely dispersed in the statistical literature and have therefore received limited exposure in the environmental science community. This book aims to provide a thorough but accessible review of these developments. It is split into two parts: the first provides an introduction to this area and the second part presents a collection of case studies illustrating the practical application of modern statistical approaches to the analysis of trends in real studies. Key Features: Presents a thorough introduction to the practical application and methodology of trend analysis in environmental science. Explores non-parametric estimation and testing as well as parametric techniques. Methods are illustrated using case studies from a variety of environmental application areas. Looks at trends in all aspects of a process including mean, percentiles and extremes. Supported by an accompanying website featuring datasets and R code. The book is designed to be accessible to readers with some basic statistical training, but also contains sufficient detail to serve as a reference for practising statisticians. It will therefore be of use to postgraduate students and researchers both in the environmental sciences and in statistics.

This book discusses a broad range of statistical design and analysis methods that are particularly well suited to pollution data. It explains key statistical techniques in easy-to-comprehend terms and uses practical examples, exercises, and case studies to illustrate procedures. Dr. Gilbert begins by discussing a space-time framework for sampling pollutants. He then shows how to use statistical sample survey methods to estimate average and total amounts of pollutants in the environment, and how to determine the number of field samples and measurements to collect for this purpose. Then a broad range of statistical analysis methods are described and illustrated. These include: * determining the number of samples needed to find hot spots * analyzing pollution data that are lognormally distributed * testing for trends over time or space * estimating the magnitude of trends * comparing pollution data from two or more populations New areas discussed in this sourcebook include statistical techniques for data that are correlated, reported as less than the measurement detection limit, or obtained from field-composited samples. Nonparametric statistical analysis methods are emphasized since parametric procedures are often not appropriate for pollution data. This book also provides an illustrated comprehensive computer code for nonparametric trend detection and estimation analyses as well as nineteen statistical tables to permit easy application of the discussed statistical techniques. In addition, many publications are cited that deal with the design of pollution studies and the statistical analysis of pollution data. This sourcebook will be a useful tool for applied statisticians, ecologists, radioecologists, hydrologists, biologists, environmental engineers, and other professionals who deal with the collection, analysis, and interpretation of pollution in air, water, and soil.

In modern society, we are ever more aware of the environmental issues we face, whether these relate to global warming, depletion of rivers and oceans, despoliation of forests, pollution of land, poor air quality, environmental health issues, etc. At the most fundamental level it is necessary to monitor what is happening in the environment – collecting data to describe the changing scene. More importantly, it is crucial to formally describe the environment with sound and validated models, and to analyse and interpret the data we obtain in order to take action. Environmental Statistics provides a broad overview of the statistical methodology used in the study of the environment, written in an accessible style by a leading authority on the subject. It serves as both a textbook for students of environmental statistics, as well as a comprehensive source of reference for anyone working in statistical investigation of environmental issues. Provides broad coverage of the methodology used in the statistical investigation of environmental issues. Covers a wide range of key topics, including sampling, methods for extreme data, outliers and robustness, relationship models and methods, time series, spatial analysis, and environmental standards. Includes many detailed practical and worked examples that illustrate the applications of statistical methods in environmental issues. Authored by a leading authority on environmental statistics.

Data on water quality and other environmental issues are being collected at an ever-increasing rate. In the past, however, the techniques used by scientists to interpret this data have not progressed as quickly. This is a book of modern statistical methods for analysis of practical problems in water quality and water resources.The last fifteen years have seen major advances in the fields of exploratory data analysis (EDA) and robust statistical methods. The 'real-life' characteristics of environmental data tend to drive analysis towards the use of these methods. These advances are presented in a practical and relevant format. Alternate methods are compared, highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of each as applied to environmental data. Techniques for trend analysis and dealing with water below the detection limit are topics covered, which are of great interest to consultants in water-quality and hydrology, scientists in state, provincial and federal water resources, and geological survey agencies.The practising water resources scientist will find the worked examples using actual field data from case studies of environmental problems, of real value. Exercises at the end of each chapter enable the mechanics of the methodological process to be fully understood, with data sets included on diskette for easy use. The result is a book that is both up-to-date and immediately relevant to ongoing work in the environmental and water sciences.

STATISTICS IN PRACTICE A practical exploration of alternative approaches to analyzing water-related environmental issues Written by an experienced environmentalist and recognized expert in the field, this text is designed to help water resource managers and scientists to formulate, implement, and interpret more effective methods of water quality management. After presenting the basic foundation for using statistical methods in water resource management, including the use of appropriate hypothesis test procedures and some rapid calculation procedures, the author offers a range of practical problems and solutions on environmental topics that often arise, but are not generally covered. These include: * Formulating water quality standards * Determining compliance with standards * MPNs and microbiology * Water-related, human health risk modeling * Trends, impacts, concordance, and detection limits In order to promote awareness of alternative approaches to analyzing data, both frequentist and Bayesian, statistical methods are contrasted in terms of their applicability to various environmental issues. Each chapter ends with a number of set problems for which full answers are provided. The book also encourages discussion between technical staff and management before embarking on statistical studies.

Few books on statistical data analysis in the natural sciences are written at a level that a non-statistician will easily understand. This is a book written in colloquial language, avoiding mathematical formulae as much as possible, trying to explain statistical methods using examples and graphics instead. To use the book efficiently, readers should have some computer experience. The book starts with the simplest of statistical concepts and carries readers forward to a deeper and more extensive understanding of the use of statistics in environmental sciences. The book concerns the application of statistical and other computer methods to the management, analysis and display of spatial data. These data are characterised by including locations (geographic coordinates), which leads to the necessity of using maps to display the data and the results of the statistical methods. Although the book uses examples from applied geochemistry, and a large geochemical survey in particular, the principles and ideas equally well apply to other natural sciences, e.g., environmental sciences, pedology, hydrology, geography, forestry, ecology, and health sciences/epidemiology. The book is unique because it supplies direct access to software solutions (based on R, the Open Source version of the S-language for statistics) for applied environmental statistics. For all graphics and tables presented in the book, the R-scripts are provided in the form of executable R-scripts. In addition, a graphical user interface for R, called DAS+R, was developed for convenient, fast and interactive data analysis. Statistical Data Analysis Explained: Applied Environmental Statistics with R provides, on an accompanying website, the software to undertake all the procedures discussed, and the data employed for their description in the book.

Fully revised and updated, this book combines a theoretical background with examples and references to R, MINITAB and JMP, enabling practitioners to find state-of-the-art material on both foundation and implementation tools to support their work. Topics addressed include computer-intensive data analysis, acceptance sampling, univariate and multivariate statistical process control, design of experiments, quality by design, and reliability using classical and Bayesian methods. The book can be used for workshops or courses on acceptance sampling, statistical process control, design of experiments, and reliability. Graduate and post-graduate students in the areas of statistical quality and engineering, as well as industrial statisticians, researchers and practitioners in these fields will all benefit from the comprehensive combination of theoretical and practical information provided in this single volume. Modern Industrial Statistics: With applications in R, MINITAB and JMP: Combines a practical approach with theoretical foundations and computational support. Provides examples in R using a dedicated package called MISTAT, and also refers to MINITAB and JMP. Includes exercises at the end of each chapter to aid learning and test knowledge. Provides over 40 data sets representing real-life case studies. Is complemented by a comprehensive website providing an introduction to R, and installations of JMP scripts and MINITAB macros, including effective tutorials with introductory material: www.wiley.com/go/modern_industrial_statistics.

A state-of-the-art presentation of optimum spatio-temporal sampling design - bridging classic ideas with modern statistical modeling concepts and the latest computational methods. Spatio-temporal Design presents a comprehensive state-of-the-art presentation combining both classical and modern treatments of network design and planning for spatial and spatio-temporal data acquisition. A common problem set is interwoven throughout the chapters, providing various perspectives to illustrate a complete insight to the problem at hand. Motivated by the high demand for statistical analysis of data that takes spatial and spatio-temporal information into account, this book incorporates ideas from the areas of time series, spatial statistics and stochastic processes, and combines them to discuss optimum spatio-temporal sampling design. Spatio-temporal Design: Advances in Efficient Data Acquisition: Provides an up-to-date account of how to collect space-time data for monitoring, with a focus on statistical aspects and the latest computational methods Discusses basic methods and distinguishes between design and model-based approaches to collecting space-time data. Features model-based frequentist design for univariate and multivariate geostatistics, and second-phase spatial sampling. Integrates common data examples and case studies throughout the book in order to demonstrate the different approaches and their integration. Includes real data sets, data generating mechanisms and simulation scenarios. Accompanied by a supporting website featuring R code. Spatio-temporal Design presents an excellent book for graduate level students as well as a valuable reference for researchers and practitioners in the fields of applied mathematics, engineering, and the environmental and health sciences.

Introduces the latest techniques advocated for measuring financial market risk and portfolio optimization, and provides a plethora of R code examples that enable the reader to replicate the results featured throughout the book. Financial Risk Modelling and Portfolio Optimization with R: Demonstrates techniques in modelling financial risks and applying portfolio optimization techniques as well as recent advances in the field. Introduces stylized facts, loss function and risk measures, conditional and unconditional modelling of risk; extreme value theory, generalized hyperbolic distribution, volatility modelling and concepts for capturing dependencies. Explores portfolio risk concepts and optimization with risk constraints. Enables the reader to replicate the results in the book using R code. Is accompanied by a supporting website featuring examples and case studies in R. Graduate and postgraduate students in finance, economics, risk management as well as practitioners in finance and portfolio optimization will find this book beneficial. It also serves well as an accompanying text in computer-lab classes and is therefore suitable for self-study.