Visual Sample Plan (VSP): A Tool for Balancing Sampling Requirements Against Decision Error Risk

Environmental characterization is necessary to support remediation and monitoring decisions and to construct and validate contaminant dispersion models. The more samples obtained, the greater is the protection against making incorrect decisions. However, taking too many samples wastes valuable resources. The US Environmental Protection Agency has developed several guidance documents on the Data Quality Objectives process to support systematic planning of data gathering campaigns to ensure that the right type, quality, and quantity of data are obtained to support confident decision making. Visual Sample Plan (VSP) is a publicly available software tool sponsored by the US Department of Energy, US Environmental Protection Agency, and the US Department of Defense to support environmental characterization and confident decisions. VSP helps the user determine the optimal number and location of samples using defensible statistical sampling design methods and displays those locations on maps or aerial photos. Sample coordinates can be output for use with GPS systems. An automatic report summarizing the assumptions and parameter inputs is generated and can be included in a sampling and analysis plan. VSP features and capabilities will be outlined in this paper. VSP can be downloaded at no cost from http://dqo.pnl.gov/vsp.