A Jackknife Estimator of Variance for a Random Tessellated Stratified Sampling Design

Abstract

Abstract Semisystematic sampling designs—in which a population area frame is tessellated into cells, and a randomly located sample is taken from each cell—affords random tessellated stratified (RTS) Horvitz–Thompson-type estimators. Forest inventory applications with RTS estimators are rare, possibly because of computational complexities with the estimation of variance. To reduce this challenge, we propose a jackknife estimator of variance for RTS designs. We demonstrate an application with a model-assisted ratio of totals estimator and data from the Danish National Forest Inventory. RTS estimators of standard error were, as a rule, smaller than comparable estimates obtained under the assumption of simple random sampling. The proposed jackknife estimator performed well.