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Environmental Modeling Community of Practice

AQUATOX Training Workshops

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One-Day Short Course Materials

A one-day short course on AQUATOX was presented as part of the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) North America 31st Annual Meeting, held November 7-11, 2010 in Portland, OR.

The objective of the short course was to familiarize users of diverse backgrounds with the capabilities of AQUATOX for use in a variety of regulatory settings.  The course included comparisons with other dynamic ecosystem models used for risk assessment. Examples of applications covered the impact of nutrient, sediments, and toxic organics on a variety of ponds, lakes, reservoirs, rivers, and an estuary.

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Three-Day Training Workshop Materials

Occasionally the US EPA offers a comprehensive three-day course. It is similar in scope to the one-day course except that it covers more aspects of the model in greater depth, with diverse hands-on exercises.  Such a course was held on AQUATOX Release 3.1 beta in December 2010, November 2011 at US EPA Region 6 in Dallas, TX, and November 2012 at the Columbia River Intertribal Fish Commission in Portland, OR, respectively. Click here for a course syllabus.  The course materials are available for download:

  • Four daily files
    • AQUATOX workshop day 1(9 pp, 52 MB) (zipped file) Introduction to model capabilities, modeling plants and animals, potential applications, model calibration and performance
    • AQUATOX workshop day 2(14 pp, 96 MB) (zipped file) Modeling nutrients and nutrient effects, application in support of water quality management, AQUATOX and BASINS, sediment effects, fate and bioaccumulation of organic chemicals
    • AQUATOX workshop day 2 demo(1 pg, 67 MB) (zipped file) Uncertainty analysis demonstration
    • AQUATOX workshop day 3(8 pp, 20 MB) (zipped file) Modeling estuaries, toxicity of organic chemicals and inorganic sediments

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The following two labs from the course at CRITFC (CRITFC Labs 6-7) are based on a very informative study and exemplify in-depth analyses of a stream in Oregon with abundant data for multiple years. The lab tracks two bioaccumulative pesticides, one that exceeds the action level in runoff and the other a legacy pesticide that is sequestered in periodically scoured sediments. The study is the first application to simulate migration and exposure of anadromous fish (lamprey and chinook salmon). Lab 7 builds on the previous bioaccumulation lab to examine time-dependent lethality, sublethal toxicity exemplified by growth reduction, and indirect effects due to reduction in predation.

Presentation Materials

Aquatox Presentations are available for download.

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