A study in determining the sample size in Geostatistics

• Author / Creator

  Or, Ying Ming

• After the scientific problem of interest is defined, collecting data is the first stage of any statistical analyses. The question of how large the sample should be is thus of great interest. In this thesis we demonstrate that in a geostatistical experiment determining the minimum sample size to achieve a certain precision of an estimator is often not possible due to inconsistencies of the estimators. This thesis is an empirical work extended from a manuscript (Gombay, 2010), which shows that the laws of large numbers may not hold under the spatial setting. It is demonstrated by a simulation study that the variance of the kriged mean converges to a non-zero constant as the sample size keeps increasing. It then followed by further investigations on the simple and ordinary kriging estimators. The conclusions arrived in this thesis lead for further research on the topic.

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Geostatistics

• Graduation date

  Fall 2010

• Type of Item

  Thesis

• Degree

  Master of Science

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/R3SC96

• License

  This thesis is made available by the University of Alberta Libraries with permission of the copyright owner solely for non-commercial purposes. This thesis, or any portion thereof, may not otherwise be copied or reproduced without the written consent of the copyright owner, except to the extent permitted by Canadian copyright law.