Statistical Methods for Trend Detection and Analysis in the Environmental Sciences (Statistics in Practice)

Abstract

The second approach is to analyse the available data, either to look for relationships that could explain how the system works or to test hypotheses suggested by process based considerations. ‘Trend analysis’ can be defined as the use of such an empirical approach to quantify and explain changes in a system over a period of time.1 The statistical tools required to carry out a trend analysis range from the simple to the very advanced. However, the complexity of most environmental systems, often coupled with difficulties in making accurate observations, ensures that simple methods are rarely adequate for more than a preliminary inspection of the data.