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Coping with variability in environmental impact assessment

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ECOtoxicology: Ecological Dimensions

Part of the book series: Chapman & Hall Ecotoxicology Series ((EMISS))

Abstract

Although the responses of people to environmental accidents are often subjective and emotional, scientific evaluation of environmental impacts must be founded on careful study and rigorous analysis. Assessments of environmental impacts are often based on the presumption of a ‘balance of nature’. Environments vary in time and space, however, and this invalidates the assumption of equilibrium and complicates study design. Natural variability also influences the likelihood that a study design will suffer from pseudoreplication due to non-independence of samples, and it affects the power of statistical tests and the effect size that can be documented. I evaluate the degree to which assumptions of temporal or spatial equilibrium are contained in various study designs for assessing environmental impacts and determining recovery. Traditional before-after or treatment-control designs rely on assumptions of a steady-state equilibrium in time or space and may be of limited value. Other designs that involve comparisons among paired sites or multiple-time sampling from areas exposed to different perturbation intensities have greater capacity to separate the effects of natural variation from those of the perturbation and may be less sensitive to pseudoreplication. Coping with variability in environmental impact assessment requires careful attention to the assumptions inherent in study designs and careful consideration of the relationships between variability, pseudoreplication and power.

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Authors
  1. John A. Wiens
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Stirling, Stirling, UK

    Donald J. Baird

  2. The University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK

    Lorraine Maltby

  3. Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Lowestoft, UK

    Peter W. Greig-Smith

  4. Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Pollution, London, UK

    Peter E. T. Douben

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© 1996 Chapman & Hall

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Wiens, J.A. (1996). Coping with variability in environmental impact assessment. In: Baird, D.J., Maltby, L., Greig-Smith, P.W., Douben, P.E.T. (eds) ECOtoxicology: Ecological Dimensions. Chapman & Hall Ecotoxicology Series. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-1541-1_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-1541-1_6

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-0-412-75490-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-009-1541-1

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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