title: A survey on the utility of the USEPA CADDIS stressor identification procedure.
abstract: The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has made available on the worldwide web a systematic stream stressor identification procedure, the "Causal Analysis/Diagnosis Decision Information System" or CADDIS. We report here the results of a survey of regulators and scientists in 11 states who use CADDIS or another stressor identification procedure in their work. The 13 survey questions address guidelines as to what impairment scenarios to approach with stressor identification, what information is needed to perform stressor identification, and what the stakeholder role is in performing stressor identification. At the time of this survey (the summer of 2009), the EPA CADDIS website was less commonly used among the state regulators surveyed than the published EPA stressor identification document on which it is based. The respondents generally find the EPA stressor identification procedure useful and capable of being adapted to their individual needs. Survey respondents all use stressor identification in their Total Maximum Daily Load work, but also in a wide variety of other applications. All the "types of evidence" included in the CADDIS stressor identification procedure are used by the practitioners surveyed with the exception of the results of ecological simulation models. While the CADDIS documentation encourages the involvement of stakeholders in stressor identification, most respondents do not assemble stakeholder teams of local officials and citizens to participate in stressor analyses.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry and Environmental Sciences Ph.D. Program, Tennessee Technological University, Cookeville, TN 38505, USA. jharwood@tntech.edu
authors.forename: John J
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Harwood
authors.forename: Robert Adam
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: Stroud
mesh_terms: D004784:Environmental Monitoring / Q000379:methods* / Q000592:standards; D017408:Guidelines as Topic; D006801:Humans; D033181:Information Dissemination; D019451:Information Management; D020407:Internet; D009862:Online Systems; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014481:United States; D014484:United States Environmental Protection Agency