This function can be used to assess the coverage of a design and also assess design statistics, such as how the number of samplers, the line length, trackline length or percentage coverage varies between surveys generated from the same design. It generates the specified number of surveys from the design and looks to see which of the coverage grid points, a systematic grid of points across the survey region, are included in each survey. When calculating coverage scores if more than one sampler falls on a grid point then that grid point gets allocated the appropriate count. These counts are then averaged over the number of surveys which have been generated. At the same time it records the relevant statistics for the design. While 100 repetitions may be sufficient to get an idea of design statistics 1000 or even more repetitions may be needed to gain a good representation of the coverage scores across the study region.
Arguments
- design
an object which inherits from the Survey.Design class.
- reps
the number of times you wish the coverage simulation to be carried out.
- save.transects
a directory where the shapefiles for the transects can be saved. The shapefile names will be S1, S2, ... existing files in the directory will not be overwritten.
- quiet
when TRUE no progress counter is displayed.
Value
this function returns the survey design object passed in and it will now include the coverage and design statistics.