Integrating causation in investigative ecological weight of evidence assessments
| Autor: | Peter M. Chapman, Ryan W Stevenson |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 2016 |
| Předmět: |
021110 strategic
defence & security studies Ecology Alternative hypothesis media_common.quotation_subject Geography Planning and Development Stressor 0211 other engineering and technologies 02 engineering and technology General Medicine 010501 environmental sciences Certainty 01 natural sciences Weighting Environmental monitoring Environmental impact assessment Causation Risk assessment Psychology 0105 earth and related environmental sciences General Environmental Science media_common |
| Zdroj: | Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management. 13:702-713 |
| ISSN: | 1551-3777 |
| Popis: | Weight of evidence (WOE) frameworks integrate environmental assessment data to reach conclusions regarding relative certainty of adverse environmental effects due to stressors, possible causation, and key uncertainties. Such studies can be investigative (i.e., determining whether adverse impact is occurring to identify a need for management) or retrospective (i.e., determining the cause of a detected impact such that management efforts focus on the correct stressor). Such WOE assessments do not themselves definitively establish causation; they provide the basis for subsequent follow-up studies to further investigate causation. We propose a modified investigative WOE framework that includes an additional weighting step, which we term "direction weighting." This additional step allows for the examination of alternative hypotheses and provides improved certainty regarding possible causation. To our knowledge, this approach has not been previously applied in investigative ecological WOE assessments. We provide a generic example of 2 conflicting hypotheses related to a mine discharging treated effluent to a freshwater lake: chemical toxicity versus nutrient enrichment. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2017;13:702-713. © 2016 SETAC. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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