By Office of Communications and Public Affairs
Prof. Nguyen Thi Kim Oanh, Distinguished Emeritus Professor at the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), has published a new book titled Statistics in Environmental Monitoring and Assessment, co-authored with Prof. Shin’ichi Okamoto, Professor Emeritus of Tokyo University of Information Sciences.
The book details how statistics plays an essential role in every step of an environmental monitoring and assessment program, from sampling design and data management to data analysis methods necessary to extract meaningful information for environmental quality management. Addressing the large temporal and spatial variations of environmental variables, the publication explains approaches to achieving representative characterization of environmental components, including air, water, biota, and solid matrices.
Written primarily for graduate students in environmental sciences who wish to use statistics as a research tool, the book will also benefit researchers interested in applying statistical methods to environmental monitoring program design and environmental data analysis.
Part I of the book provides the fundamentals of statistics which is an edited version of the lecture notes from an intensive course “Sampling Design” taught to graduate students from the School of Environment, Resources and Development (SERD) at AIT. The course provided statistical foundations to enhance students’ ability to design laboratory experiments, conduct field surveys, and analyze data for master’s theses and doctoral research. Part II covers the sampling strategies and techniques to enable selecting appropriate statistical sampling designs to obtain representative monitoring data, both of technical measurements and social surveys. Part III focuses on selection and application of statistical methods for analyzing the environmental monitoring data to extract science-based information for effective environmental quality management.
A key strength of the book is its use of real-life case studies, each accompanied by clear explanations of fundamental concepts, methodologies, and considerations when applying specific statistical methods. The case studies span a wide range of environmental monitoring programs, including ambient air quality, industrial pollution discharges and their impacts on receiving water bodies, biological species distribution, and market surveys.
The authors express their appreciation to AIT for the opportunity to offer the “Sampling Design” course at the Institute. The course began in 2000 as the Akira Harada Lectures on Environmental Statistics, initially supported through an endowment by Mr. Akira Harada.
The book is available at: https://tinyurl.com/mrxw362v
A hardcover copy of the book is also available at the AIT Library.
