Measurement uncertainty arising from sampling contaminated land: a tool for evaluating fitness-for-purpose

New methods have recently been devised to estimate the uncertainty in measurements caused by the processes of both sampling and chemical analysis. Knowing this uncertainty, allows judgements to me made as to whether a sampling protocol is appropriate, based on a fitness-for-purpose criteria such as an acceptable level of uncertainty. A fundamental change in sampling philosophy is thereby to encourage the use of a range of appropriate sampling protocols that give estimates of uncertainty, rather than to pursue the use of a single uniform protocol. to give measurements of acceptable quality