Optimizing marine debris monitoring: balancing statistical power and test size in survey design Ecological Indicators

Conducting a power analysis is a best practice for designing long-term environmental monitoring programs so that trade-offs in survey design elements such as sample size and temporal revisits can be evaluated. However, these analyses are sensitive to a priori decisions about the underlying distribution of the data, appropriate model structure, and choice of trend test. Improper trend model specification and inappropriate trend tests can affect power estimates, leading to misguided choices of survey design elements, trend tests with inflated test size (i.e., increased probability of detecting a nonexistent trend), and management decisions based on misleading information.