Radiochemical verification and validation in the environmental data collection process

Conference · Sat Dec 31 04:00:00 EST 1994

OSTI ID:49398

Rosano-Reece, D ^[1]; Bottrell, D ^[2]; Bath, R J ^[3]

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1. DynCorp Viar, Alexandria, VA (United States)
2. USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
3. Waste Policy Inst., Gaithersburg, MD (United States)

A credible and cost effective environmental data collection process should produce analytical data which meets regulatory and program specific requirements. Analytical data, which support the sampling and analysis activities at hazardous waste sites, undergo verification and independent validation before the data are submitted to regulators. Understanding the difference between verification and validation and their respective roles in the sampling and analysis process is critical to the effectiveness of a program. Verification is deciding whether the measurement data obtained are what was requested. The verification process determines whether all the requirements were met. Validation is more complicated than verification. It attempts to assess the impacts on data use, especially when requirements are not met. Validation becomes part of the decision-making process. Radiochemical data consists of a sample result with an associated error. Therefore, radiochemical validation is different and more quantitative than is currently possible for the validation of hazardous chemical data. Radiochemical data include both results and uncertainty that can be statistically compared to identify significance of differences in a more technically defensible manner. Radiochemical validation makes decisions about analyte identification, detection, and uncertainty for a batch of data. The process focuses on the variability of the data in the context of the decision to be made. The objectives of this paper are to present radiochemical verification and validation for environmental data and to distinguish the differences between the two operations.

• OSTI ID: 49398
• Report Number(s): CONF-941189--; ISBN 1-56590-016-2
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

40 CHEMISTRY
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
DATA
DATA COVARIANCES
ENVIRONMENTAL MATERIALS
QUALITY ASSURANCE
RADIOCHEMICAL ANALYSIS
VALIDATION
VERIFICATION