Scholars@Duke
Kenneth H. Reckhow

Kenneth H. Reckhow

Professor Emeritus of Water Resources
Environmental Sciences and Policy
reckhow@duke.edu
Box 90328, Durham, NC 27708-0328
A 317A Lev Sci Res Ctr, Durham, NC 27708

Selected Publications

Calibrating and validating bacterial water quality models: a Bayesian approach.

Journal Article Water research · June 2009 Water resource management decisions often depend on mechanistic or empirical models to predict water quality conditions under future pollutant loading scenarios. These decisions, such as whether or not to restrict public access to a water resource area, ma ... Full text Cite

A Multilevel Model of the Impace of Farm-Level BMPs on Phosphorus Runoff

Journal Article Journal of the American Water Resources Association · 2009 Cite

Estimation of Margin of Safety for Korean TMDL Development

Journal Article Desalination and Water Treatment · 2009 Cite

Adaptive implementation in the TMDL program: A new approach.

Journal Article Water Practices (online journal) · 2008 Cite

Assessing Water Quality Standard Violations

Journal Article Environmental Science & Technology · 2008 Cite

Don't Debate; Adapt

Journal Article Water Environment & Technology · 2008 Cite

Approaches to evaluate water quality model parameter uncertainty for adaptive TMDL implementation

Journal Article Journal of the American Water Resources Association · December 1, 2007 The National Research Council recommended Adaptive Total Maximum Daily Load implementation with the recognition that the predictive uncertainty of water quality models can be high. Quantifying predictive uncertainty provides important information for model ... Full text Cite

Delineation of the role of nutrient dynamics and hydrologic forcing on phytoplankton patterns along a freshwater-marine continuum

Journal Article Ecological Modelling · November 10, 2007 We examined the spatiotemporal phytoplankton community patterns and identified the nature of the underlying causal mechanisms in a freshwater-saltwater continuum, the Neuse River Estuary (North Carolina, USA). We used a Bayesian structural equation modelin ... Full text Cite

Eutrophication risk assessment using Bayesian calibration of process-based models: Application to a mesotrophic lake

Journal Article Ecological Modelling · November 10, 2007 We introduce the Bayesian calibration of process-based models to address the urgent need for robust modeling tools that can effectively support environmental management. The proposed framework aims to combine the advantageous features of both mechanistic a ... Full text Cite

Combining model results and monitoring data for water quality assessment.

Journal Article Environmental science & technology · July 2007 A Bayesian approach is used to update and improve water quality model predictions with monitoring data. The objective of this work is to facilitate adaptive management by providing a framework for sequentially updating the assessment of water quality statu ... Full text Cite

Application of Bayesian structural equation modeling for examining phytoplankton dynamics in the Neuse River Estuary (North Carolina, USA)

Journal Article Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science · March 1, 2007 We introduce a Bayesian structural equation modeling framework to explore the spatiotemporal phytoplankton community patterns in the Neuse River Estuary (study period 1995-2001). The initial hypothesized model considered the influence of the physical envir ... Full text Cite

Assessment of water quality management with a systematic qualitative uncertainty analysis.

Journal Article The Science of the total environment · March 2007 Uncertainty is an inevitable source of noise in water quality management and will weaken the adequacy of decisions. Uncertainty is derived from imperfect information, natural variability, and knowledge-based inconsistency. To make better decisions, it is n ... Full text Cite

Evaluation of the current state of mechanistic aquatic biogeochemical modeling: citation analysis and future perspectives.

Journal Article Environmental science & technology · November 2006 We examined the factors that determine the citations of 153 mechanistic aquatic biogeochemical modeling papers published from 1990 to 2002. Our analysis provides overwhelming evidence that ocean modeling is a dynamic area of the current modeling practice. ... Full text Cite

A Bayesian approach to retransformation bias in transformed regression.

Journal Article Ecology · June 2006 Ecological data analysis often involves fitting linear or nonlinear equations to data after transforming either the response variable, the right side of the equation, or both, so that the standard suite of regression assumptions are more closely met. Howev ... Full text Cite

Global change: The nitrogen cycle and rivers

Journal Article Water Resources Research · March 1, 2006 The hydrologic sciences must play a major role in improving our understanding of the transport and fate of the vast amount of reactive nitrogen that is being added to the environment by human activities. Detailed understanding of the function of different ... Full text Cite

Exploring ecological patterns with structural equation modeling and Bayesian analysis

Journal Article Ecological Modelling · February 25, 2006 Structural equation modeling is a multivariate statistical method that allows evaluation of a network of relationships between manifest and latent variables. In this statistical technique, preconceptualizations that reflect research questions or existing k ... Full text Cite

Global change: The nitrogen cycle and rivers

Journal Article Water Resources Research · 2006 Cite

Compilation of Measured Nutrient Load Data for Agricultural Land Uses in the US

Journal Article Journal American Water Resources Association · 2006 Cite

Nonlinear regression modeling of nutrient loads in streams: A Bayesian approach

Journal Article Water Resources Research · July 1, 2005 A Bayesian nonlinear regression modeling method is introduced and compared with the least squares method for modeling nutrient loads in stream networks. The objective of the study is to better model spatial correlation in river basin hydrology and land use ... Full text Cite

A predictive approach to nutrient criteria.

Journal Article Environmental science & technology · May 2005 Violation of a water quality standard triggers the need for a total maximum daily load (TMDL); this should result in actions that improve water quality, but sometimes at significant cost. If the standard is well-conceived, a designated-use statement charac ... Full text Cite

Confounding effect of flow on estuarine response to nitrogen loading

Journal Article Journal of Environmental Engineering · June 1, 2004 The total maximum daily load (TMDL) concept provides the basis for regulating pollution load from riverine sources to impaired water bodies. However, load is comprised of two components: flow and concentration. These two components may have confounding, or ... Full text Cite

A Bayesian network of eutrophication models for synthesis, prediction, and uncertainty analysis

Journal Article Ecological Modelling · April 1, 2004 A Bayesian network consists of a graphical structure and a probabilistic description of the relationships among variables in a system. The graphical structure explicitly represents cause-and-effect assumptions that allow a complex causal chain linking acti ... Full text Cite

Integrated approach to total maximum daily load development for Neuse River Estuary using Bayesian probability network model (Neu-BERN)

Journal Article Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management · July 1, 2003 We develop a probability network model to characterize eutrophication in the Neuse River Estuary, North Carolina, and support the estimation of a total maximum daily load (TMDL) for nitrogen. Unlike conventional simulation models, probability networks desc ... Full text Cite

On the need for uncertainty assessment in TMDL modeling and implementation

Journal Article JOURNAL OF WATER RESOURCES PLANNING AND MANAGEMENT-ASCE · July 2003 Cite

Comparison of Estuarine water quality models for total maximum daily load development in Neuse River Estuary

Journal Article Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management · July 1, 2003 The North Carolina Division of Water Quality developed a total maximum daily load (TMDL) to reduce nitrogen inputs into the Neuse River Estuary to address the problem of repeated violations of the ambient chlorophyll a criterion. Three distinct water quali ... Full text Cite

Predicting the frequency of water quality standard violations: a probabilistic approach for TMDL development.

Journal Article Environmental science & technology · May 2002 To address the impaired condition of the water bodies listed under Section 303(d) of the Clean Water Act, over 40 000 total maximum daily loads (TMDLs) for pollutants must be developed during the next 10-15 years. Most of these will be based on the results ... Full text Cite

Stakeholder Values and Scientific Modeling in the Neuse River Watershed

Journal Article Group Decision and Negotiation · December 1, 2001 In 1998, the North Carolina Legislature mandated a 30% reduction in the nitrogen loading in the Neuse River in an attempt to reduce undesirable environmental conditions in the lower river and estuary. Although sophisticated scientific models of the Neuse e ... Full text Cite

A Bayesian hierarchical model to predict benthic oxygen demand from organic matter loading in estuaries and coastal zones

Journal Article Ecological Modelling · September 15, 2001 Ecological models that have a theoretical basis and yet are mathematically simple enough to be parameterized using available data are likely to be the most useful for environmental management and decision-making. Mechanistic foundations improve confidence ... Full text Cite

Water resources programs under the ax.

Journal Article Science (New York, N.Y.) · June 2001 Full text Cite

LAND COVER AS A FRAMEWORK FOR ASSESSING RISK OF WATER POLLUTION1

Journal Article JAWRA Journal of the American Water Resources Association · December 2000 ABSTRACT: A survey of numerous field studies shows that nitrogen and phosphorous export coefficients are significantly different across forest, agriculture, and urban land‐cover types. We used simulations to estimate the lan ... Full text Cite

Modeling excessive nutrient loading in the environment.

Journal Article Environmental pollution (Barking, Essex : 1987) · January 1999 Models addressing excessive nutrient loading in the environment originated over 50 years ago with the simple nutrient concentration thresholds proposed by Sawyer (1947. Fertilization of lakes by agricultural and urban drainage. New Engl. Water Works Assoc. ... Full text Cite

Water quality prediction and probability network models

Journal Article Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences · January 1, 1999 It is a common strategy in surface water quality modeling to attempt to remedy predictive inadequacies by incorporating additional mechanistic detail into the model. This approach reflects the reasonable belief that enhanced scientific understanding of bas ... Full text Cite

Lessons from risk assessment

Journal Article Human and Ecological Risk Assessment (HERA) · January 1, 1999 Risk assessment and uncertainty analysis are important tools for improving environmental decision making. However, their value is limited when the environmental endpoints assessed by scientists do not coincide with the publicly-meaningful attributes that a ... Full text Cite

Statistical issues for monitoring ecological and natural resources in the United States

Journal Article Environmental Monitoring and Assessment · January 1, 1999 The United States funds a number of national monitoring programs to measure the status and trends of ecological and natural resources. Each of these programs has a unique focus; the scientific objectives are different as are the sample designs. However, in ... Full text Cite

Modeling phosphorus trapping in wetlands using nonparametric Bayesian regression

Journal Article Water Resources Research · January 1, 1998 Phosphorus-enriched agricultural runoff from the Everglades Agriculture Area is believed to have caused ecological changes in the northern part of the Everglades wetlands. A number of efforts have been made to assess the effectiveness of using constructed ... Full text Cite

Characterization of parameters in mechanistic models: A case study of a PCB fate and transport model

Journal Article Ecological Modelling · April 15, 1997 As a first step in a Bayesian analysis of PCB fate and transport in the upper Hudson River, a joint probability density function for parameters in a simulation model is created. The density function describes the joint probabilities of the following parame ... Full text Cite

Cost-effective monitoring strategies to estimate mean water table depth

Journal Article Ground Water · January 1, 1997 Cost-effective monitoring strategies exist for estimating mean depth to the water table and for characterizing fluctuations about that mean. These strategies can also be used to evaluate the utility of sparse water level data sets for making such estimates ... Full text Cite

Bayesian model for fate and transport of polychlorinated biphenyl in upper Hudson River

Journal Article Journal of Environmental Engineering - ASCE · May 1, 1996 Modelers of contaminant fate and transport in surface waters typically rely on literature values when selecting parameter values for mechanistic models. While the expert judgment with which these selections are made is valuable, the information contained i ... Full text Cite

Estimator bias in a lake phosphorus model with observation error

Journal Article Water Resources Research · January 1, 1996 We investigated observation-error-induced parameter bias using least squares and Stein-corrected least squares estimators in a model for predicting lake phosphorus. The Stein-corrected estimator performed better than the uncorrected estimator from bias and ... Full text Cite

Improved estimation of ecological effects using an empirical Bayes method

Journal Article Water Resources Bulletin · January 1, 1996 The US Environmental Protection Agency is currently developing guidance for assessing environmental impact using biocriteria within a regulatory framework. Of particular interest are statistical methods of design and analysis to test for impairment of biol ... Full text Cite

Importance of scientific uncertainty in decision making

Journal Article Environmental Management · March 1, 1994 Uncertainty in environmental decision making should not be thought of as a problem that is best ignored. In fact, as is illustrated in a simple example, we often informally make use of awareness of uncertainty by hedging decisions away from large losses. T ... Full text Cite

Modeling phosphorus trapping in wetlands using generalized additive models

Journal Article Water Resources Research · January 1, 1994 In the past several years, wetlands have become increasingly used for wastewater treatment purposes. As a consequence, nutrient trapping and accumulation, particularly for phosphorus, have emerged as important environmental management issues. To predict th ... Full text Cite

A decision analytic framework for environmental analysis and simulation modeling

Journal Article Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry · January 1, 1994 A decision analytic approach is proposed for environmental planning and analysis under scientific uncertainty. This approach begins with the creation of a planning framework that consists of all relevant objectives and attributes, along with all feasible m ... Full text Cite

Water quality simulation modeling and uncertainty analysis for risk assessment and decision making

Journal Article Ecological Modelling · January 1, 1994 The usefulness of water quality simulation models for environmental management is explored with a focus on prediction uncertainty. Ecological risk and environmental analysis often involve scientific assessments that are highly uncertain. Still, environment ... Full text Cite

A random coefficient model for chlorophyll-nutrient relationships in lakes

Journal Article Ecological Modelling · January 1, 1993 Statistical models of nutrient-phytoplankton relationships in lakes are usually fitted on cross-sectional data sets and thus describe multi-lake behavior using a single set of global model parameters. As a result, prediction of individual lake response ref ... Full text Cite

Statistical evaluation of mechanistic water-quality models

Journal Article Journal of Environmental Engineering (United States) · January 1, 1992 Full text Cite

Bayesian inference in non-replicated ecological studies

Journal Article Ecology · January 1, 1990 Classical hypothesis testing is founded on a long-run frequency perspective that is the basis for error rates and P values used in classical statistical inference. Thus in ecological studies involving formal hypothesis testing, it is common practice to rep ... Full text Cite

Statistical evaluation of mechanistic water-quality models

Journal Article Journal of Environmental Engineering (United States) · January 1, 1990 Current practice for the verification of water-quality simulation models is to use a combination of modeler judgment and graphical analysis to assess the adequacy of a model. Statistical testing of goodness-of-fit is sometimes undertaken, but usually with ... Full text Cite

A comparison of robust bayes and classical estimators for regional lake models of fish response to acidification

Journal Article Water Resources Research · January 1, 1988 Empirical models of fish response to lake acidification were recently fit to a large historical data set from the Adirondack region of the United States using classical and Bayesian methods. The models may be used to predict species presence/absence for br ... Full text Cite

SYSTEMS-ANALYSIS

Journal Article JOURNAL WATER POLLUTION CONTROL FEDERATION · June 1, 1987 Link to item Cite

Empirical models of fish response to lake acidification

Journal Article Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences · January 1, 1987 A large historical data set from the Adirondack region of New York was compiled to study the relationship between water chemistry variables associated with acid precipitation and the presence/absence of selected fish species. The data set was used to exami ... Full text Cite

SYSTEMS-ANALYSIS

Journal Article JOURNAL WATER POLLUTION CONTROL FEDERATION · June 1, 1986 Link to item Cite

Systems analysis

Journal Article Journal of the Water Pollution Control Federation · January 1, 1985 Cite

POLLUTANT RUNOFF MODELS: SELECTION AND USE IN DECISION MAKING

Journal Article JAWRA Journal of the American Water Resources Association · January 1, 1985 Models for pollutant runoff can be useful in water quality management planning if appropriately structured for the problem at hand. Accordingly, a “top‐down” approach is proposed for the examination of extant pollutant runoff models. The approach consists ... Full text Cite

Effect of Human Use of Energy on Climate

Journal Article Ecology · December 1984 Full text Cite

TECHNIQUES FOR DETECTING TRENDS IN LAKE WATER-QUALITY

Journal Article WATER RESOURCES BULLETIN · January 1, 1984 Link to item Cite

SYSTEMS-ANALYSIS

Journal Article JOURNAL WATER POLLUTION CONTROL FEDERATION · January 1, 1984 Link to item Cite

Systems analysis

Journal Article Journal of the Water Pollution Control Federation · January 1, 1983 Cite

A method for the reduction of lake model prediction error

Journal Article Water Research · January 1, 1983 Recent work on methods of error analysis to accompany the application of lake models has not enjoyed great acceptance in part because of the magnitude of the error term. For the models that have undergone a rigorous error analysis (generally the single equ ... Full text Cite

Predicting Variability in a Lake Ontario Phosphorus Model

Journal Article Journal of Great Lakes Research · January 1983 Full text Cite

Confirmation of water quality models

Journal Article Ecological Modelling · January 1, 1983 Water quality simulation models, whether descriptive or predictive, must undergo confirmatory analyses if inferences drawn from the models are to be meaningful. Current practices in the confirmation of simulation models are examined and criticized from thi ... Full text Cite

AN EXAMINATION OF LAND-USE - NUTRIENT EXPORT RELATIONSHIPS

Journal Article WATER RESOURCES BULLETIN · January 1, 1982 Link to item Cite

A Procedure Using Modeling and Error Analysis for the Prediction of Lake Phosphorus Concentration from Land Use Information

Journal Article Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences · September 1, 1980 Recent work in the area of empirical lake modeling and error analysis has resulted in some useful methods for the assessment of lake trophic quality. These methods are incorporated into the procedure presented herein for the prediction of lake pho ... Full text Cite

Techniques for Exploring and Presenting Data Applied to Lake Phosphorus Concentration

Journal Article Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences · February 1, 1980 Water quality sampling and data analysis are undertaken to acquire and convey information. Therefore, when data are presented, the form of this presentation should be such that information transfer is high. For example, a graph or table of average ... Full text Cite

CORRECTION

Journal Article CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES · 1980 Cite

A note on error analysis for a phosphorus retention model

Journal Article Water Resources Research · December 1979 A statistical technique proposed for the estimation of the uncertainty in the prediction of phosphorus concentration in lakes using the Dillon‐Rigler‐Kirchner model can increase the practical value of this and similar models. The usefulness of this ... Full text Cite

Expressing the Phosphorus Loading Concept in Probabilistic Terms

Journal Article Journal of the Fisheries Research Board of Canada · February 1, 1979 Data from North Temperate lakes were used to estimate the uncertainty of a phosphorus loading model. A number of graphical representations of the uncertainty were developed to demonstrate the importance of including probabilistic information in ph ... Full text Cite

UNCERTAINTY ANALYSIS APPLIED TO VOLLENWEIDER PHOSPHORUS LOADING CRITERION

Journal Article JOURNAL WATER POLLUTION CONTROL FEDERATION · 1979 Cite

USE OF A SIMPLE-MODEL AND UNCERTAINTY ANALYSIS IN LAKE MANAGEMENT

Journal Article WATER RESOURCES BULLETIN · 1979 Cite

LAKE QUALITY DISCRIMINANT-ANALYSIS

Journal Article WATER RESOURCES BULLETIN · 1978 Cite