Environmental Impact Assessment: "Pseudoreplication" in Time?

Abstract

A recent monograph by Hurlbert raised several problems concerning the appropriate design of sampling programs to assess the impact upon the abundance of biological populations of, for example, the discharge of effluents into an aquatic ecosystem at a single point. Key to the resolution of these issues is the correct identification of the statistical parameter of interest, which is the mean of the underlying probabilistic "process" that produces the abundance, rather than the actual abundance itself. We describe an appropriate sampling scheme designed to detect the effect of the discharge upon this underlying mean. Although not guaranteed to be universally applicable, the design should meet Hurlbert's objections in many cases. Detection of the effect of the discharge is achieved by testing whether the difference between abundances at a control site and an impact site changes once the discharge begins. This requires taking samples, replicated in time, Before the discharge begins and After it has begun, at both the Control and Impact sites (hence this is called a BACI design). Care needs to be taken in choosing a control site so that it is sufficiently far from the discharge to be largely beyond its influence, yet close enough that it is influenced by the same range of natural phenomena (e.g., weather) that result in long—term changes in the biological populations. The design is not appropriate where local events cause populations at Control and Impact sites to have different lo…