Environmental effects monitoring program canada

The current technical guidance document requires only one reference and exposed site. Because it is pseudo-replicated, with sufficient power it is very likely that the study will find a statistically significant difference between the reference and exposed sites. Thus, EC recommended the implementation of Critical Effects Sizes, or a threshold difference between reference and exposed sites. Critical Effect Sizes CES , defined as thresholds above which effects may be indicative of a potential higher risk to the environment, have been developed for the fish population and benthic invertebrate community components of the MMER-EEM program.

Given these challenges, there have been questions as to whether the conclusions drawn from the Second National Assessment are sufficiently informative, and what changes can and should be made to the EEM program. Though neither study replicated the meta-analysis of the Second National Assessment, both questioned the methodology of the EEM studies, and suggested that the findings of the Second National Assessment were due to confounding factors.

Both reports supported implementing CES, but also suggested other changes to the EEM studies, such as utilizing a Bonferroni Correction on the level of significance to account for performing multiple tests. Learn more. Within the U. Outside the U. The types of aquatic environmental monitoring and assessment studies we perform include:. Of the people surveyed, 26 responded.

They expressed concerns from a lack of overall direction to poor communication to an arbitrary and inadequate funding cap being gradually nibbled away by inflation. It points out that funding has remained unchanged since despite inflation, amounting to a nearly nine-per-cent cut. Despite the fact wetlands cover about a quarter of the oilsands area, funding for wetlands research was more than halved in after being cut two-thirds the previous year.

Finally, a case study conducted to evaluate the congruity of lethal and nonlethal fish population survey results identified that the effect endpoints often produced conflicting conclusions for the same response variable. Ultimately, this study highlights that in order to strengthen and promote the use of nonlethal fish sampling as an alternate to the current standard of conducting lethal fish population surveys under the EEM program, the effect endpoints, study designs, and adoption of CES need to be thoroughly evaluated and included in the MDMER.