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Updated: Aug 12, 2025

Sampling Soils in a Heterogeneous Research Plot
Published on: January 7, 2019
Comparison of different approaches of soil sampling uncertainty determination
Denis Glavič-Cindro1, Michel Bruggeman2, Boštjan Črnič1
1Jožef Stefan Institute, Jamova cesta 39, SI-1000, Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Abstract:
The ISO/IEC 17025 standard requires that all significant contributions have to be propagated to the measurement uncertainty, including also sampling uncertainties. We evaluated soil sampling uncertainties for gamma-ray spectrometry by using in-house and split-sample methods. By in-house method, the sampling uncertainty was determined by comparing standard deviations of measurement results and average analytical uncertainty. With split-sample method, it was calculated using between-sample and between-analysis variances. If analytical uncertainty is reliably determined, the in-house method is recommended because fewer measurements are needed.
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