Umstrukturierung des deutschen Moos‐Monitoring‐Messnetzes für eine regionalisierte Abschätzung atmosphärischer Deposition in terrestrische Ökosysteme

Development of the software tool Sample Size for Arbitrary Distributions and exemplarily applying it for calculating minimum numbers of moss samples used as accumulation indicators for atmospheric deposition

“…To verify the SSAD method, the MSN was calculated using the data of the Moos Survey 2015 with the concentrations of 12 heavy metals (Al, As, Cd, Cr, Cu, Fe, Hg, Ni, Pb, Sb, V, Zn) and nitrogen [3] measured at 400 moss sampling sites in Germany. The calculation was carried out throughout Germany using the SSAD method (method C) 1 and comparing the calculation formula of the Moss Manual (method A) with identical data, i.e.. with data from the Moss Survey 2015.…”

“…Only in the case of sample sizes ≤ 25 (method C needs sample sizes ≥ 25), SSAD was supplemented by the formula of the manual of the European Moss Survey [1] (method A) in the case of normally distributed variables or the extension proposed by Wosniok ([11], cited in [8]) in the case of differently distributed variables (method B). As in Nickel and Schröder [3] and Schröder et al [9] for the four elements of the Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution (CLRTAP)-i.e., Cd, Hg, Pb and N-the results of the MSN calculations were cartographically illustrated for comparisons of the spatial…”

“…The methodological principle consists of using reference data (previous measured values) for a series of MSN candidate values to determine what accuracy would be achieved with these, and then calculating the minimum MSN with which the specified accuracy requirement is met from a quadratic function between MSN candidates and their accuracy. This is based on the same accuracy criteria as the formula for normally distributed data (method A) or the extension based on the formula of Cox (method B) for lognormally distributed data [3,9].…”