Long-term monitoring strategies for ecological reclamation programmes using spatially balanced rotating panel designs

Environmental monitoring continues to be necessary along with a growing
human population and increased anthropocentric land use changes. 
In instances where oil and gas development and subsequent ecological
reclamation practices occur, constraints associated with manpower and
short growing seasons may make it impossible to conduct full census
surveys on every location.  We propose using a spatially balanced
rotating panel sampling design which utilizes neighbourhoods created by
spatial and auxiliary information. As it is common for reclamation efforts
across space to be influenced by environmental factors, we assume nearby
locations which are treated with the same inputs will be more similar to
each other than far away areas. We use a one-point-per-cluster sampling
design to ensure good spatial coverage of the large area. This approach is
helpful because it guarantees local coverage during each sampling phase,
achieves equal inclusion probabilities, and has excellent spatial spread.
We give examples from the Pinedale Anticline natural gas field in Sublette
County, Wyoming, USA. Our examples include a natural gas well pad
reclamation programme consisting of 303 locations as well as a ~21 km
pipeline right-of-way system undergoing reclamation.