[Federal Register Volume 75, Number 185 (Friday, September 24, 2010)]
[Notices]
[Page 58374]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2010-23966]


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ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY

[FRL-9206-7]


2010 Release of CADDIS (Causal Analysis/Diagnosis Decision 
Information System)

AGENCY: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

ACTION: Notice of public release.

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SUMMARY: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is announcing 
the public release of the 2010 version of the Causal Analysis/Diagnosis 
Decision Information System (CADDIS). This Web site was developed to 
help scientists find, develop, organize, and use environmental 
information to improve causal assessments of biological impairment. The 
CADDIS Web site was developed and prepared by EPA's National Center for 
Environmental Assessment (NCEA), in the Office of Research and 
Development (ORD), and is available at http://www.epa.gov/caddis.

DATES: The 2010 CADDIS Web site will become publically available on 
September 24, 2010.
    Additional Information: For additional information on the CADDIS 
Web site, please contact the Information Management Team via mail: 
Mailcode 8601P, National Center for Environmental Assessment, U.S. 
Environmental Protection Agency, 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW., 
Washington, DC 20460; telephone: 703-347-8561; facsimile: 703-347-8691; 
or e-mail: [email protected].

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Over a thousand water bodies in the United 
States are listed by states as biologically impaired. For many of these 
sites, the cause of impairment is reported as ``unknown.'' Before 
appropriate management actions can be formulated for impaired water 
bodies, the causes of biological impairment (e.g., excess fine 
sediments, nutrients, toxics, and other stressors) must be identified. 
Effective causal analyses require 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. To aid in these causal analyses, NCEA developed 
CADDIS, a web-based decision support system to help regional, state, 
and tribal investigators find, access, organize, and share information 
useful for causal evaluations in aquatic systems. CADDIS is based on 
EPA's Stressor Identification process, which is a formal method for 
identifying causes of impairments in aquatic environments. Features of 
CADDIS include a step-by-step guide to conducting causal assessments; a 
summary of relevant causal assessment history and concepts; summary 
information for common sources and stressors; applied examples of 
causal assessment methods; information on basic and advanced data 
analyses; downloadable software tools; and an online application for 
collaborating on conceptual diagrams and using them to update and 
access a database of supporting literature.

    Dated: September 20, 2010.
Lynn Flowers,
Acting Director, National Center for Environmental Assessment.
[FR Doc. 2010-23966 Filed 9-23-10; 8:45 am]
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