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1992
Citation:
Olsen, A. AND D. Stevens, Jr. 1992. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, D.C., EPA/600/R-92/073 (NTIS PB92178987).
Description:
There are two classes of statistical issues: firm issues amenable to problem statement and technical resolution and soft issues that have qualitative dimensions and ideological implications. irm issues are easy: defining and stating the problem is much of the solution. he soft issues are difficult: the problems are not easily stated, there may be no clear-cut answer, yet the approach taken can have profound impacts on our mode of operation. nvironmental monitoring and assessment contains both kinds of issues. n this paper, we briefly identify some of the more pressing firm issues that have arisen in the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Program (EMAP), a nation-wide program designed to monitor national ecological resources. ssues that we believe are amenable to technical solution include tradeoffs between status estimation and change/trend detection, interplay between probability sampling and spatial statistics, and the effects of three components on variation on assessment of population condition. wo specific issues that have qualitative aspects are discussed. he discussions concentrate on the statistical facets of what to monitor in the environment and how to monitor it.