Spatial sampling and public opinion in environmental management: A case study of the Ythan catchment

Surveying opinion on environmental issues, where large environmental variation can coincide with low population, highlights the inherent tension between the need to best represent each individual aspect, and the need to understand their interactions. This has been problematic for variable based sampling methods, leading to interest in spatial stratification. The paper presents a method to obtain a representative sample over ‘key axes’ of environmental change and over Euclidean space, as a proxy for unknown environmental and demographic variance. The Ythan Project was an EU Life funded project aimed at involving the community in catchment-based environmental protection. Three example results are discussed as to the effectiveness of the sampling strategy chosen. Wider implications are then drawn for the role of government and non-government organisations in monitoring public opinion on environmental issues.