Growing demand for geochemical surveys of large areas for environmental purposes involves costs and technical rigor that necessitate increased concern for sampling design. In order to supply data for which the degree of uncertainty is known and to use both field and laboratory resources efficiently, formal experimental design procedures must be used. Optimum final sampling designs can be determined only from the results of preliminary pilot studies in which analysis of variance techniques is a powerful tool.

Analysis of variance techniques can be applied to the study of conceptual units that make up the landscape (such as rock units, soils,...