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Multivariate Statistical Analysis of Environmental Monitoring Data
Author(s) -
Ross D. Lauren
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
groundwater
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.84
H-Index - 94
eISSN - 1745-6584
pISSN - 0017-467X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1745-6584.1997.tb00177.x
Subject(s) - statistical power , multivariate statistics , statistical hypothesis testing , statistical analysis , statistics , statistical model , multivariate analysis , computer science , multiple comparisons problem , data mining , reliability engineering , mathematics , engineering
EPA requires statistical procedures to determine whether soil or ground water adjacent to or below waste units is contaminated. These statistical procedures are often based on comparisons between two sets of data: one representing background conditions, and one representing site conditions. Since statistical requirements were originally promulgated in the 1980s, EPA has made several improvements and modifications. There are, however, problems which remain. One problem is that the regulations do not require a minimum probability that contaminated sites will be correctly identified. Another problem is that the effect of testing several correlated constituents on the probable outcome of the statistical tests has not been quantified. Results from computer simulations to determine power functions for realistic monitoring situations are presented here. Power functions for two different statistical procedures: the Student's t‐test, and the multivariate Hotelling's T 2 test, are compared. The comparisons indicate that the multivariate test is often more powerful when the tests are applied with significance levels to control the probability of falsely identifying clean sites as contaminated. This program could also be used to verify that statistical procedures achieve some minimum power standard at a regulated waste unit.