A practical method to control spatiotemporal confounding in environmental impact studies.

ABSTRACT: Separating natural spatiotemporal variation from the impact of human activities has long been a challenge in environmental impact studies. To overcome this problem, a causal modelling method based on spatiotemporal data, integrated with existing statistical methods such as multivariate redundancy analysis, multiple regression and, ordination was used for inferring causal effects of wastewater on biotic ecosystems. The causal modelling techniques were structural equation modelling (SEM) and Bayesian Networks (BNs); SEM, with the help of statistical analysis, was used for building deterministic models while the composite hypothesis underlying the models was checked based on the principle of BNs. Both spatial and temporal variations were considered in the design of the study so that spatiotem

SUBMITTER: Hatami R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6070679 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature