WEST principal statistician, Dr. Leigh Ann Starcevich, and NOAA scientists, Dr. Amy V. Uhrin, PhD and Hillary Burgess, are pleased to share their research article titled, “Optimizing Marine Debris Monitoring: Balancing Statistical Power and Test Size in Survey Design,” published in the journal Ecological Indicators. This publication represents a key milestone in NOAA’s effort to develop a nationwide shoreline survey for marine debris. Power analysis was used to inform the design of a nationwide shoreline marine debris monitoring survey across 10 regional extents in the US. Test size and power were compared for three trend tests, five levels of variance composition, five temporal revisit designs, and three levels of within-year replication over an 11-year monitoring duration.
The results of the power analysis demonstrate the importance of appropriately-allocated temporal replication, the effects of variance composition on trend test power, and the utility of assessing trend test size when comparing trend test power for a range of survey design elements.
