Decision Making and Distributions
Be Careful
Sometimes in environmental regulation, we are unable to find a clear cause-effect relationship between a known stressor and a known response due to confounders. This is a common problem when attempting to determine acceptable nutrient regimes for some systems. For example, Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) was required to promulgate Numeric Nutrient Criteria for estuaries as the result of a lawsuit, yet no straightforward cause-effect relationship could be found for Total Nitrogen (TN) and/or Total Phosphorus (TP) leading to excess Chlorophyll a, which in turn lead to submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) die-off resulting in the loss of this key habitat for these highly productive systems.
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