Weight of Evidence for Environmental Assessment

Glenn W. Suter II is a retired environmental assessor. During his 20 years at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, he served as the Science Advisor to the Director of the National Center for Environmental Assessment in Cincinnati and as Chairman of the Risk Assessment Forum’s Ecological Oversight Committee. Before that he worked for 23 years in the Environmental Sciences Division of Oak Ridge National Laboratory. He has more than 300 publications including four authored books and four edited books. Susan M. Cormier, now retired, has been a university professor, and senior scientist and science advisor in the Office of Research and Development in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. She was recruited to join the EPA and committed herself for the next 36 years to developing effective ways to assess and protect aquatic resources. She developed EPA methods, guidance, and applications for condition, causal, and criterion research and assessments, all of which depend on weight of evidence. Much of her work was co-authored with her long-time colleague and coauthor Glenn W. Suter II.

• Part I. Background of Weight of Evidence. 1. History, Scope, and Definition of Weight of Evidence. 2. Weight of Evidence Methods. 3. Alternatives to Weight of Evidence. 4. The Context of Weight of Evidence. Part II. Implementing Weight of Evidence. 5. Frameworks for Weight of Evidence. 6. Assembling Evidence. 7. Weight the Evidence. 8. Weigh the Body of Evidence. 9. Reassessment. 10. Communication. 11. Verification and Justification for Weight of Evidence. 12. Inference for Deriving Quantities. Part III. Using Weight of Evidence. 13. Setting Goals and Endpoints. 14. Condition, Causation, and Environmental Epidemiology. 15. Benchmark Values. 16. Evaluating Chemicals and Other Agents. 17. Contaminated Sites. 18. Proposed Actions. 19. Deriving and Selecting Models. 20. Analogies. 21. Resource Management. 22. Evidence-to-Decision Frameworks. 23. Future Weight of Evidence. Part IV. Supporting Material. 24. Weight of Evidence Epilogue. Appendix A. Qualitative Questions for which Evidence is Weighed in Different Types of Assessments. Appendix B. Characteristics of Inferred Qualities. Appendix C. Strategic Tips.