Marine Litter Monitoring,

Batangas, February 2024,

Advancing data collection harmonization in the Philippines
 HOW TO SURVEY
VERY DIRTY SITES
Subsampling and estimating survey methods
EVIDENCE OF
DUMPING
EVIDENCE OF
DUMPING
 Methods to efficiently survey sites that are heavily littered?
VERY DIRTY
SITES AND
TRANSECTS Subsampling and estimating

• Use subsampling when a transect is heavily littered

• Use estimating when an interval is heavily littered

 When a transect is heavily littered

SUBSAMPLING
THEORY • Choose what proportion of the transect you will subsample
 10%
 20%
 50%

•This proportion is how much of each interval you will

survey
•Follow the usual litter survey method but only survey the
first proportion of each interval

•For example
•We select subsample of 50%
•We would only look for litter in the first 50% of each interval

!
How do you know what proportion to select?
Make a best guess with your team.
 What subsampling looks like in ODK

SUBSAMPLING
IN ODK APP

ODK APP
 When an interval is heavily littered
If you encounter an interval that is heavily littered, you can
ESTIMATING estimate the amount.
THEORY ! Estimating is usually only done for one or two items

Choose what proportion of the interval you will survey for that
litter item
 10%
 20%
 50%

• This proportion is how much of the interval you will survey for that
litter item!
• Count how many are in that portion of the interval
• Multiply that count by the proportion to get an estimation for the total
interval area
• Use the following equation to correctly multiply your count
• Count of item * (100 / proportion of interval surveyed)

• At the next interval, return to surveying the whole interval

 Estimating litter example

ESTIMATING For example

EXAMPLE o We survey the first interval and find one litter item
o In the second interval we find a couple of items
o In the third interval, we find there are hundreds of
small plastic fragments, so we decide to estimate
o We select a 10% proportion
o We count the number of small plastic fragments in
that 10% of the interval
o Estimated count of item for whole interval =
Count * (100/10) … As we chose 10%
o For all other litter items in that interval, we survey
using the normal method
o Once all litter in that interval is counted, we move
to the next interval
EVIDENCE OF
DUMPING