Forensic soil comparison: towards objective methods for a more robust evidential value

Abstract

The thesis ‘Forensic soil comparison: towards objective methods for a more robust evidential value’ describes the various challenges that forensic practitioners face when they use pollen analysis (palynology) for forensic soil comparisons. These challenges are divided in three categories; obtaining relevant data, comparing palynological data and criminalistic interpretation, and are applicable to many disciplines involved in forensic soil investigations. The thesis describes a case example on the difficulties in actual soil case work and, in following chapters, develops two methods to provide an objective comparison of soil with an indication of the evidential value. Finally, these results of these research methods are combined into two examples of so-called Bayesian networks. Such networks can be used as a basis for combining all evidence into a more objective and integrated forensic soil case work.