Source Assessment: Analysis of Uncertainty--Principles and Applications

摘要

This report provides the results of a study that was conducted to analyze the uncertainties involved in the calculation of the decision parameters used in the Source Assessment Program and to determine the effect of these uncertainties on the decision-making procedure. A general procedure for performing an analysis of uncertainty is developed based on the principles of error propagation and statistical inference. It is shown that this simple and straightforward method represents an approximation to standard statistical techniques. The approximate method is illustrated by application to four problems in the area of environmental control. The general procedure is used to establish guidelines for conducting air emissions studies in the Source Assessment Program. In particular, guidelines are established for precision in field sampling and analytical work, and for setting critical values of decision parameters.