ABSTRACT
The first and most important step of any environmental study is to define the objectives of the study and to design the sampling program. This chapter discusses the basic scientific method and the Data Quality Objectives (DQO) process, which is a formal mechanism for implementing the scientific method and identifying important information that needs to be known in order to make a decision based on the outcome of the study (e.g., clean up the site or leave it alone). One of the major steps in the DQO process involves deciding how you will sample the environment in order to produce the information you need to make a decision. We therefore also discuss several sampling methods in this chapter as well. Finally, we present a real-world case study to illustrate the DQO process.
