[Federal Register Volume 72, Number 192 (Thursday, October 4, 2007)]
[Notices]
[Pages 56755-56756]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: E7-19624]


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ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY

[FRL-8479-3]


2007 Release of Causal Analysis/Diagnosis Decision Information 
System (CADDIS)

AGENCY: Environmental Protection Agency.

ACTION: Notice of public release.

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SUMMARY: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announces the 
availability of the EPA Web site, ``Causal Analysis/Diagnosis Decision 
Information System (CADDIS)''--2007. EPA's National Center for 
Environmental Assessment (NCEA) in the Office of Research and 
Development (ORD) led the development of the CADDIS Web site in 
response to strong demand within the EPA (e.g., the Office of Water) 
and from stakeholders and citizens across the United States seeking a 
defensible method for determining causes of ecological impairment. 
CADDIS guides users through EPA's Stressor Identification process, with 
interactive tools and methods, worksheets, and examples to help 
scientists and engineers evaluate causes of biological impairment 
observed in aquatic systems such as streams, lakes, and estuaries.
    Access: The CADDIS 2007 Web site can be accessed via the Internet 
at  http://www.epa.gov/caddis/.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For further information about CADDIS, 
contact Rick Ziegler, NCEA, via phone: 202-564-2257, or e-mail: 
[email protected].

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Thousands of water bodies in the United 
States have been reported to have an ``unknown'' cause of impairment. 
To formulate appropriate management actions for impaired water bodies, 
it is critical to identify the causes of biological impairment (e.g., 
excess fine sediments, nutrients, or toxic substances). Effective 
causal analyses call for knowledge of the mechanisms, symptoms, and 
stressor-response relationships for various stressors, as well as the 
ability to use that knowledge to draw appropriate, defensible 
conclusions. NCEA developed CADDIS, a Web-based decision support 
system, to help regional, state, and tribal scientists perform causal 
analyses. With this release, CADDIS will also help scientists find, 
access, organize, and share information useful for causal evaluations 
of impairment in aquatic systems. It is based on EPA's Stressor 
Identification process, which is an EPA-recommended method for 
identifying causes of impairments in aquatic environments. EPA released 
the first version of CADDIS in 2006, after addressing comments from the 
public and independently selected, external peer reviewers. The first 
release of CADDIS included a step-by-step guide to conducting causal 
analysis, downloadable worksheets and examples, a library of conceptual 
models, and links to useful information sources.
    CADDIS 2007 adds considerable power and usability to the first 
release. Namely, CADDIS ecologists and Web specialists made the 
following changes:
     Added eight modules, each describing a common stressor or 
candidate cause of biological impairment; the stressor modules include 
metals, sediments, nutrients, dissolved oxygen, temperature, ionic 
strength, flow alteration, and unspecified toxic chemicals.
     Added material on data analysis including:
    [cir] Information on how nine analytical methods (e.g., scatter 
plots, linear regression, predicting environmental

[[Page 56756]]

conditions from biological observations, quantile regression and 
species sensitivity distributions) can be used to analyze causal 
relationships.
    [cir] CADStat, a downloadable software package for analyzing data 
using a variety of exploratory and statistical approaches.
    [cir] SSD Generator, a tool for deriving species sensitivity 
distributions.
    [cir] Databases of stressor-response information including chronic 
exposure-response relationships and species sensitivity distributions 
for metals from laboratory tests; and stressor-response associations 
from field observational data for metals and sediments.
     Greatly expanded the conceptual model library by adding 
generic conceptual models for common causes of biological impairment.
     Developed an interactive Flash-based conceptual model 
diagram for one common stressor (phosphorus), which provides source 
citations for cause-and-effect linkages shown in the diagram. (The 
CADDIS team anticipates this part of the site will expand to include 
other common stressors and--at some point in the future--harness 
information collaboratively from the greater scientific community.)
     Updated CADDIS's underlying code, which adheres to EPA's 
latest Web guidelines, and--similar to the first release--continues to 
maintain accessibility and 508 compliance.

    The CADDIS 2007 release provides users with state-of-the-art causal 
assessment information and tools for determining why aquatic systems 
are biologically impaired. Ultimately, use of the CADDIS Web site 
translates to healthier ecosystems within the United States, while 
serving as an example stressor identification tool for our global 
environment.

    Dated: September 27, 2007.
Rebecca Clark,
Acting Director, National Center for Environmental Assessment.
[FR Doc. E7-19624 Filed 10-3-07; 8:45 am]
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