Bodies of water have been monitored for many years. Government agencies have monitored streams, lakes, wetlands, rivers, estuaries, coastal waters, and reservoirs. The basic reason for monitoring is to fulfill some requirement. For example, a new treatment plant is constructed and we want to know if it is in compliance with current regulations. A more general type of question can deal with regional issues. What is the quality and condition of the Nation's lakes? What is the quality and condition of coastal waters and streams in Alaska?

    The next 21 pages give a brief introduction to the central ideas of sampling, starting with simple random sampling, and ending up with spatially distributed sampling.  Software now exists to accomplish spatially distributed sampling starting from information in Geographic Information systems.  The last page in this series describes two softare implementations of spatially distributed sampling which existed where these materials were composed.  To go directly to that page, use this link.