Geostatistics for Environmental Scientists

The focus of the book remains straightforward linear geostatistics based on least-squares estimation. The theory and techniques have been around in mineral exploration and petroleum engineering for some four decades. 

For much of that time environmental scientists could not see the merits of the subject or appreciate how to apply it to their own problems, because of the context, the jargon and the mathematical presentation of the subject by many authors. This situation has changed dramatically in the last ten years as soil

scientists, hydrologists, ecologists, geographers and environmental engineers have seen that the technology is for them if only they could know how to apply it.

The structure of the book follows the order in which an environmental scientist would tackle an investigation. It begins with sampling, followed by data screening, summary statistics and graphical display. It includes some of the empirical methods that have been used for mapping, and the shortcomings of these that lead to the need for a different approach. This last is based on the

theory of random processes, spatial covariances, and the variogram, which is central to practical geostatistics. 

Practitioners will learn how to estimate the variogram, what models they may legitimately use to describe it mathematically, and how to fit them. Their attention is also drawn to some of the difficulties of variography associated with the kinds of data that they might have to analyse. There is a brief excursion into the frequency domain to show the equivalence of covariance and spectral analysis.

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Geostatistics for Environmental Scientists