Each of the short-term sampling strategies described above
(single grab sample, 24-h and 48-h continuous monitoring and
7-d continuous monitoring) could be repeated, while the long-
term weekly grab sampling strategy could vary in length. This
would increase the precision of the simulated estimates. The
influence of taking multiple (n) random grab samples, 24-h
periods, 48-h periods, 7-d periods or weekly grab samples
during n consecutive weeks on the estimated EF was evalu-
ated. These evaluations started by calculating all possible grab
samples, 24-h periods, 48-h periods, 7-d periods or long-term
weekly grab sample strategies that fulfilled the requirements
as mentioned in Section 2.2. Thereafter 1 to n random grab
samples, 24-h periods, 48-h periods or 7-d periods or long-
term weekly grab sample strategies for 1 to n consecutive
weeks were randomly taken for all possible periods. Finally,
for all 1 to n sampling cases, the relative error between the true
EF (as determined with Eq. (2) and based on the whole dataset)
and the estimated EF (based on a limited number of mea-
surements and only representing an estimation of the true EF)
was determined as a function of the number of sampling cases
for each of the investigated reduced frequency sampling
strategies (Daelman et al., 2013). These sampling cases were
the number (n) of 24-h (or 48-h) random periods for the 24-h
(or 48-h) reduced sampling strategies, or the number of
random, 7-d periods for the one week reduced sampling
strategy. For the random grab sampling strategies, the num-
ber of single grab samples was determined necessary to obtain
an estimate with a relative error smaller than ±15%. Similarly,
for the long-term weekly grab sampling strategy, the number
of weeks necessary to obtain an estimate with a relative error