Characterization of the constitutional heterogeneity of contaminated soils and its influence on sampling uncertainty

无偏和可重复的土壤采样和浓度测量是环境现场评价具有代表性的关键。大多数土壤取样分析指南和方案都要求样品代表性，但从未给出适当的描述和定量定义，经常导致不正确和随意的抓取取样。这种不具代表性的土壤取样是场地修复项目中不确定性的重要来源。抽样理论或抽样理论与实践（STP）定义了代表性和不确定性，并提供了定量和方法学原则来控制它们。尽管STP在提高对污染土壤取样的基本知识和实践的认识方面具有巨大潜力，但它只在这方面得到了有限的应用，并取得了不同程度的成功。大多数缺点涉及对不确定性和样本量的高估，这可能是由于实际的CH数学实现不适合污染土壤。本研究的预期结果将是对污染土壤CH的认识取得重大进展，并为设计具有代表性的污染土壤采样程序和分析实际采样方法的不确定性提供新的验证理论框架。这将提高补救活动的成本效益，并减少遗漏污染的风险。在每年500亿美元的国际市场中，这些结果对加拿大的修复行业也具有重要意义。

Unbiased and reproducible soil sampling and concentration measurements are key to the representativeness of environmental site assessment. Sample representativeness is required in the majority of guidance and protocols on soil sampling for analysis, but it is never given a proper description and quantitative definition, often leading to incorrect and haphazard grab sampling. Such unrepresentative soil sampling is a significant source of uncertainty in site remediation projects.The Theory of sampling or Sampling Theory and Practice (STP) defines representativeness and uncertainty and provides quantitative and methodological principles to control them. Despite its significant potential for improving knowledge on the fundamentals and practice of contaminated soil sampling, the STP has only been marginally applied for this purpose and to varying degrees of success. Most shortcomings involve an overestimation of uncertainty and sample size, which may be due to the practical mathematical implementation of CH which is not appropriate for contaminated soils.The expected outcome of this research will be significant advances of knowledge on the CH of contaminated soils and a new validate theoretical framework for designing representative contaminated soil sampling procedures and analysing the uncertainty of actual sampling methods. This will the cost effectiveness of remediation activities and reduce the risk of missed contamination. In an international annual market of $50 billion US, these outcomes can also be significant for the canadian remediation industry.