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Statistics and Decision Support Courses

Neptune and Company has developed and presented training courses on a wide variety of environmental decision-making topics. Most of these courses are aimed at non-technical audiences. Materials covered are presented in terms of statistical concepts, allowing the audience to focus on understanding the essence of the statistical approaches rather than purely the mathematical components. Topics covered included exploratory data analysis (summary statistics and graphics), hypothesis testing, confidence intervals, testing assumptions, lognormal distributions, non-parametric statistics, correlation, regression, temporal analysis, spatial analysis, multivariate analysis, and bootstrapping. Courses on data integrity, validation, and verification, data quality objectives, data quality indicators, data quality assessment, sampling designs, and censored data are also included in our selection of courses available to be offered for the convenience of our clients.

Short Course on Ecological Risk Assessment Methods
for Arid and Semiarid Environments

Course Objectives and Benefits: This course will cover the assessment of ecological risk over multiple scales of biological organization for terrestrial and aquatic species in arid and semiarid environments. Arid and semiarid environments are important, comprising almost one third of the earth's land surface and most of the western and southwestern United States. The evaluation of ecological effects in such environments needs to be technically defensible; a challenging proposal if risk assessment approaches developed for moist habitats are used. For example, standard terrestrial toxicity bioassays are more applicable to mesic sites than arid sites. This course provides an overview of the tools and challenges for performing ecological risk assessments in arid and semiarid ecosystems and illustrates the overview with case studies.

To bring a full understanding of ecological effects characterization to the attendees, this course attempts to

• demonstrate the special considerations of arid and semiarid environments under Superfund's ecological risk assessment framework,
• illustrate conceptual site model and problem formulation development through biotic transport in the desert and bioaccumulation in arid-adapted species,
• describe how contamination effects in arid or semiarid soils can be interpreted using standard toxicity tests and using more site-specific biota,
• consider special needs and management of aquatic resources in arid environments, and
• document the strengths and limitations of using ecological risk assessments to support informed environmental decision making in southwestern and western United States.

This course is specifically designed to enhance the understanding of ecological risk assessments that have been or will be conducted in arid and semiarid environments.

Who Should Attend: This course is targeted towards both risk managers and practitioners. This course will allow risk managers to objectively evaluate ecological risk assessments performed in arid environments and will provide guidance on data evaluation for characterizing and interpreting ecological risk. Practitioners will benefit from the tools and approaches presented for arid and semiarid ecological risk assessment case studies. Furthermore, this course will provide risk managers with an appreciation and understanding of the ecological risk assessment process as a basis for sound environmental decision making.

Half-Day, Full-Day, or Two-Day Versions are Offered: We have taught this course eight times in a variety of formats - either on general arid ERA topics or tailored to a location.

Further Information: Contact Jim Markwiese or Randy Ryti (505.662.2121) with any questions on this short course.