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Integrating causation in investigative ecological weight of evidence assessments
Author(s) -
Stevenson Ryan W,
Chapman Peter M
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
integrated environmental assessment and management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.665
H-Index - 57
eISSN - 1551-3793
pISSN - 1551-3777
DOI - 10.1002/ieam.1861
Subject(s) - causation , ecology , environmental science , environmental health , biology , medicine , political science , law
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