If an overall snapshot of plant growth in a small lake is the primary objective, then we recommend that transects cover the entire waterbody and should be separated by no more than 40 m (130 ft). By default, EcoSound buffers a 50 m area around travelled paths and creates a contiguous grid of 5 m grid cells within the buffered area. Thus, a full lake map will be created if transects are spaced 40 m a part and are spread across the entire lake.
Based on research findings in multiple fields of study, predictions up to a resolution of 1/10th the transect spacing (i.e., 1/5th on either side of adjacent transects) should be relatively robust. Thus, the default EcoSound resolution of 5 m should be sufficient for most lake survey applications. Closer spacing of transects will increase the confidence in map predictions in not sampled locations.
It is important to keep in mind the difference between interpolation and extrapolation. Kriging will extrapolate outside of your trip path as well as interpolate; thus, users should keep this in mind, especially when trying to type nearshore environments less than 2.4 feet (the shallow limit for vegetation typing by EcoSound). If the last travelled transect near shore had surface growth of plants, then the shore parallel to the track will display red even if in truth, there were no plants growing in these locations. To more accurately display nearshore vegetation, the user should add manual vegetation coordinates.