HA1 Ecological Decision Frameworks
Ballroom E, Level 4
8:00 AM - 12:00 PM, Thursday, 13 November 2003
Chair: Maciorowski, Anthony ,
(481) Investigating Causes of Biological Impairment in Aquatic Systems: A Development Plan for CADDIS.
Norton, S1, Cormier, S1, Rao, L1, Suter, G1, Subramanian, B1, Swietlik, W2, Shaw-Allen, P1, Minamyer, S1, Autrey, B1, 1 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Research and Development, Washington, DC, USA2 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Water, Washington, DC, USA
ABSTRACT- Increasingly, the regulatory, remedial and restoration actions taken to manage impaired environments are based on measurement and analysis of the biotic community. When an aquatic community has been identified as impaired, the cause of the impairment must be determined so that appropriate actions can be taken. The USEPA's Stressor Identification (SI) Guidance describes a methodology for identifying the causes of observed impairments in aquatic systems. Stressor identification requires extensive knowledge on the mechanism, symptoms, and stressor-response relationships for various specific stressors as well as the ability to use that knowledge in a formal method for causal analysis. This poster describes the first version of the Causal Analysis/Diagnosis Decision Information System (CADDIS). CADDIS is envisioned as a decision support system that will help investigators in the regions, states and tribes find, access, organize, use and share information useful for causal evaluations in aquatic systems. It will include supporting case studies, and analysis tools, and will provide access to databases that contain information useful for causal evaluations. Future versions will be developed incrementally and iteratively, and frequent user input and feedback will be essential to the system's success.
Key words: biological assessment, causality, ecoepidemiology