Wednesday, June 6, 2007 - 5:00 PM
306

Combining Multiple Lines and Levels of Evidence (MLLE) and the US EPA conceptual models

Richard H. Norris, Susan J. Nichols, and Gail C. Ransom. Institute for Applied Ecology & eWater Cooperative Research Centre, University of Canberra, Canberra, Australia

There are many issues where there is confusion over the use of scientific evidence to draw conclusions.  The heated debate over whether smoking causes lung cancer, with its social polarization and strong financial interests, was finally resolved in a landmark 1964 decision by the US Surgeon General, based on an approach called Multiple Lines and Levels of Evidence. Natural resource management debates using scientific evidence have many of the same hallmarks as health debates, and scientific information is often neglected because protagonists from either side use it selectively or in an uninformed way.  Yet, natural resource managers are increasingly required to adopt transparent, evidence-based decision-making processes. We have developed a Multiple Lines and Levels of Evidence (MLLE) approach, supported by web-based software, which offers a robust method to structure scientific information in a transparent way to inform and draw conclusions. The need for a good conceptual model is paramount to the approach and the USEPA is developing conceptual models for common aquatic stressors, which are linked to supporting literature.  Linking these models to the web-based MLLE tool could form the basis of a MLLE assessment to address questions of causality between environmental stressors, management interventions and ecological outcomes.

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