Field data relating aquatic ecosystem responses with water quality constituents that are potential ecosystem stressors are being used increasingly in the United States in the derivation of water quality criteria to protect aquatic life. In light of this trend, there is a need for transparent quantitative methods to assess the performance of models that predict ecological conditions using a stressor-response relationship, a response variable threshold, and a stressor variable criterion. Analysis of receiver operating characteristics (ROC analysis) has a considerable history of successful use in medical diagnostic, industrial, and other fields for similarly structured decision problems, but its use for informing water quality management decisions involving risk-based environmental criteria is less common. In this article, ROC analysis is used to evaluate predictions of ecological response variable status for 3 water quality stressor-response data sets. Information on error rates is emphasized due in part to their common use in environmental studies to describe uncertainty. One data set is comprised of simulated data, and 2 involve field measurements described previously in the literature. These data sets are also analyzed using linear regression and conditional probability analysis for comparison. Results indicate that of the methods studied, ROC analysis provides the most comprehensive characterization of prediction error rates including false positive, false negative, positive predictive, and negative predictive errors. This information may be used along with other data analysis procedures to set quality objectives for and assess the predictive performance of risk-based criteria to support water quality management decisions.

McLaughlin DB. 2012. Assessing the predictive performance of risk-based water quality criteria using decision error estimates from Receiver Operating Characteristics (ROC) analysis. Integr Environ Assess Manag 8:674-684. Formulae for the FPE and FNE error rates were incorrect as originally published in Table 2. The correct formulae are: FPE ¼ n(FP)/[n(TN) þ n(FP)]; FNE ¼ n(FN)/[n(FN) þ n(TP)] as presented here in the corrected table.

This study determined total number, biomass, taxa, and seasonal occurrence of adult aquatic insects emerging from four vegetation zones in one diked and one undiked freshwater coastal marsh on hypereutrophic lower Green Bay, Lake Michigan, USA during the summer of 1984. Floating box traps were placed in open water, sparse emergent, dense emergent, and wet meadow vegetation zones in each marsh. Insects were collected during 20 24-hour periods, each four days apart, from June 11 to August 26. Two-way ANOVA was used to test differences in number and biomass of insects between marshes and among vegetation zones. Polynomial regression was used to evaluate seasonal emergence patterns. More insects, insect biomass, and insect taxa were found in the diked marsh, especially during the first half of the sampling period. Damselflies were much more abundant in the diked marsh. Most insects and insect biomass were found in the sparse emergent vegetation zone of both marshes. The emerging insect community in the diked marsh appears enhanced by its separation from the hypereutrophic and turbid waters of lower Green Bay.