Precision enhancement in variance estimation for complex environmental populations using adaptive cluster sampling.

Estimating dispersion in populations that are extremely rare, hidden, geographically clustered, and hard to access is a well-known challenge. Conventional sampling approaches tend to overestimate the variance, even though it should be genuinely reduced. In this environment, adaptive cluster sampling is considered to be the most efficient sampling technique as it provides generally a lower variance than the other conventional probability sampling designs for the assessment of rare and geographically gathered population parameters like mean, total, variance, etc.