Ecological Risk Setup

After you have successfully created a SADA file (see Creating a SADA File), you may setup ecological risk for the contaminants in this file by selecting Ecological Risk from the Setup menu.

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The following introductory form for the ecological risk setup will appear.

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After selecting Yes, the ecological risk setup wizard will begin. The first step is to identify the source file for the ecological risk information. The SADA installation will create a file called eco_toxdata.mdb, which contains all the necessary information. This file should already be present in the root SADA directory (usually C:\Program Files\SADA\).

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To locate a file, click on the Browse button. A typical browse folder will then appear that will default to the directory in which the SADA executable resides.

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Select eco_toxdata.mdb and then select Open.

Note: To get the most recent eco_toxdata.mdb file, visit the SADA web site at: http://www.tiem.utk.edu/~sada/. Here you can download the eco_toxdata.mdb file and copy it over the one that exists in the installation directory. You can perform a Check Eco Version and compare the dates and version numbers with the file at the web site to see if updating is necessary.

Once eco_toxdata.mdb has been selected, click Next>> from the Step 1 form.

SADA now attempts to match each contaminant in your file with a contaminant found in the toxicological database. SADA matches by CAS number first (if available) and then by name. If the CAS number and name match exactly, SADA classifies it as Matched. If only the Name or the CAS number match, then the classification is Partial Match. Finally, if no match is found for either, the classification is No Match. These three classifications are presented in the next window.

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On the left, your contaminants have been divided into the three categories. To view a resulting match for any contaminant, click on the down arrow and select your contaminant from the resulting drop down list. The corresponding selection on the right hand side will change to show SADAs match for your contaminant. If the match is acceptable, press the Register button. If all matches within a category are acceptable, press Register All. To unregister a matched pair(s), select the pair(s) in the registered contaminants box and press Unregister. Your contaminants will return to their original classification with their original match.

If no match is available for some of your contaminants, you may leave them as unregistered. Later, if the toxicological information becomes available, you may link these (or re-link registered) contaminants separately without setting up the entire risk module again. See Rematch Single Ecological Contaminant.

Press Next>> to conclude setting up the risk module. Once the module is complete, you will have access to an ecological menu.

You may reset the Risk module at any time; simply select Ecological under the Setup menu of the main window. The process is the same as before; however, SADA will give you the opportunity to reset or skip the selection of the benchmark and scenario parameters database.