Mitchell J. Small

Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering; and Engineering and Public Policy

Carnegie Mellon, 1982-.

Interests

Research in mathematical modeling and monitoring of environmental systems, uncertainty and risk.

For a full list of major publications click here for pdf file.

Education

Research Activities

Environmental Impact and Exposure Models

Mathematical models are developed and applied for ground water contamination, surface water pollution, long-range atmospheric transport, indoor air pollution and integrated assessment of large, multidisciplinary problems. Indoor air pollution models are combined with human behavioral studies to develop integrated exposure models which consider both pollutant and human behavior in the environment. Projects in integrated assessment include studies of acid deposition and global climate impacts such as the effect of sea level rise on land use in coastal areas.

Uncertainty in Risk Assessment

Research is conducted on methods for characterizing uncertainty, its implications for regulatory decisions, and the value of information which can lead to reduced uncertainty and improved decision making. Bayesian statistical methods are applied to identify the impact of research and monitoring programs at various stages in an environmental health risk assessment.

Representative Publications

Books

McDaniels, T.L. and M.J. Small (eds). 2004. Risk Analysis and Society: An Interdisciplinary Characterization of the Field. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.

Ramaswami, A., J.A. Milford and M.J. Small. 2005. Integrated Environmental Modeling: Pollutant Transport, Fate and Risk in the Environment. John Wiley & Sons, New York.

Journal Articles

Small, M.J. and W.P. Darby. 1976. Evaluating water quality impacts of small streams on major urban rivers. J. Boston Society of Civil Eng., ASCE, 63: 101-122.

Darby, W.P. and M.J. Small. 1976. Identifying urban flash flooding problems. J. Wat. Res. Planning Mgt. Div., ASCE, 102: 349-363.

Di Toro, D.M. and M.J. Small. 1979. Stormwater interception and storage. J. Env. Eng. Div., ASCE, 105: 43-54.

Small, M.J. and P.J. Samson. 1983. Stochastic simulation of atmospheric trajectories. J. Clim. & Appl. Meteor., 22: 266-277.

Small, M.J. and M.C. Sutton. 1986. A direct distribution model for regional aquatic acidification. Water Resources Research, 22: 1749-1758.

Crawford, S.L., M.H. DeGroot, J.B. Kadane and M.J. Small. 1992. Modeling lake chemistry distributions: Bayesian methods for estimating a finite-mixture model. Technometrics, 34: 441-453.

Patwardhan, A. and M.J. Small. 1992. Bayesian methods for model uncertainty with application to future sea level rise. Risk Analysis, 12: 513-523.

Wilkes, C.R., M.J. Small, J.B. Andelman, N.J. Giardino and J. Marshall. 1992. Inhalation exposure model for volatile chemicals from indoor uses of water. Atmospheric Environment, 26A: 2227-2236.

Merz, J., M.J. Small and P. Fischbeck. 1992. Measuring decision sensitivity: A combined Monte Carlo-logistic regression approach. Medical Decision Making, 12: 189-196.

Ramaswami, A. and M.J. Small. 1994. Modeling the spatial variability of natural trace element concentrations in groundwater. Water Resources Research, 30: 269-282.

Dakins, M.E., J.E. Toll and M.J. Small. 1994. Risk-based environmental remediation: Decision framework and role of uncertainty. Environmental Toxicology & Chemistry, 13: 1907-1915.

Small, M.J., A.B. Nunn, III, B.L. Forslund and D.A. Daily. 1995. Source attribution of elevated residential soil lead near a battery recycling site. Environmental Science & Technology, 24(4): 883-895.

Brand, K.P. and M.J. Small. 1995. Updating uncertainty in an integrated risk assessment: Conceptual framework and methods. Risk Analysis, 15(6): 719-731.

Dakins, M.E., J.E. Toll, M.J. Small and K.P. Brand. 1996. Risk-based environmental remediation: Bayesian Monte Carlo analysis and the expected value of sample information. Risk Analysis, 16(1): 67-79.

Wolfson, L.J., J.B. Kadane and M.J. Small. 1996. Bayesian environmental policy decisions: Two case studies. Ecological Applications, 6(4): 1056-1066.

Kovacs, D.C., M.J. Small, C.I. Davidson and B. Fischhoff. 1997. Behavorial factors affecting exposure potential for household cleaning products. Journal of Exposure Analysis and Environmental Epidemiology, 7(4): 505-520.

Small, M.J. 1997. Groundwater detection monitoring using combined information from multiple constituents. Water Resources Research, 33(5): 957-969.

Stiber, N.A., M. Pantazidou and M.J. Small. 1999. Expert system methodology for evaluating reductive dechlorination at TCE sites. Environmental Science & Technology, 33(17): 3012-3020.

Farrow, R.S., C.B. Goldburg and M.J. Small. 2000. Economic valuation and the environment: A special issue. Environmental Science & Technology, 34(8): 1381-1383.

Casman, E.A., B. Fischhoff, C. Palmgren, M.J. Small and F. Wu. 2000. An integrated risk model of a drinking-water-borne cryptosporidiosis outbreak. Risk Analysis, 20(4): 495-511.

Sohn, M.D., M.J. Small and M. Pantazidou. 2000. Reducing uncertainty in groundwater site characterization using Bayes Monte Carlo methods. Journal of Environmental Engineering, 126(10): 893-902.

West, J.J., M.J. Small and H. Dowlatabadi. 2001. Storms, investor decisions, and the economic impacts of sea level rise. Climatic Change, 48: 317-342.

Riley, D.M., B. Fischhoff, M.J. Small and P. Fischbeck. 2001. Evaluating the effectiveness of risk-reduction strategies for consumer chemical products. Risk Analysis, 21, 357-369.

Gurian, P.L, M.J. Small, J.R. Lockwood III and M.J. Schervish. 2001. Benefit-cost estimation for alternative drinking water maximum contaminant levels. Water Resources Research, 37(9): 2213-2226.

Gurian, P.L, M.J. Small, J.R. Lockwood III and M.J. Schervish. 2001. Addressing uncertainty and conflicting cost estimates in revising the arsenic MCL. Environmental Science & Technology, 35(22): 4414-4420.

Lockwood, J.R., M.J. Schervish, P. Gurian and M.J. Small. 2001. Characterization of arsenic occurrence in source waters of US community water systems. Journal of the American Statistical Association, 96(456): 1184-1193.

Gurian, P.L. and M.J. Small. 2002. Point-of-use treatment and the revised arsenic MCL. Journal American Water Works Association, 94(3): 101-108.

Reichert, P., M. Schervish and M.J. Small. 2002. An efficient sampling technique for Bayesian inference with computationally demanding models. Technometrics, 44(4): 318-327.

Axtell, R.L., C.J. Andrews and M.J. Small. 2002. Agent-based modeling and industrial ecology. Journal of Industrial Ecology, 5(4): 10-13. Invited column on Systems Modeling and the Environment.

DeKay, M.L., M.J. Small, P.S. Fischbeck, R.S. Farrow, A. Cullen, J.B. Kadane, L. Lave, M.G. Morgan and K. Takemura. 2002. Risk-based decision analysis in support of precautionary policies. Journal of Risk Research, 5(4): 391-417.

Schultz, M.T., M.J. Small, R.S. Farrow and P.S. Fischbeck. 2004 State water pollution control policy insights from a reduced-form model. Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management, 130(2): 150-159.

Lockwood, J.R., M.J. Schervish, P. Gurian and M.J. Small. 2004. Analysis of contaminant co-occurrence in community water systems. Journal of the American Statistical Association, 99(465): 45-56.

Boccelli, D.L., M.J. Small and U.M. Diwekar. 2004. Treatment plant design for particulate removal: Effects of flow rate and particle characteristics. Journal of American Water Works Association, 96(11): 77-90.

Karcher, S.C., M.J. Small and J.M. VanBriesen. 2004. Statistical method to evaluate the occurrence of PCB transformations in river sediments with application to Hudson River data. Environmental Science & Technology, 38(24): 6760 -6766.

Krayer von Krauss, M.P., E.A. Casman and M.J. Small. 2004. Elicitation of expert judgments of uncertainty in the risk assessment of herbicide tolerant oilseed crops. Risk Analysis, 24(6): 1515-1527.

Stiber, N.A., M.J. Small and M. Pantazidou. 2004. Site-specific updating and aggregation of Bayesian Belief Network models for multiple experts. Risk Analysis, 24(6): 1529-1538.

Ramaswami, A., J.B. Milford and M.J.Small. 2004. Integrated environmental assessment, Part II: Modeling fate and transport. Journal of Industrial Ecology, 8(3): 11-13.

Goyal, A., M.J. Small, K. von Stackelberg, D. Burmistrov and N. Jones. 2005. Estimation of fugitive lead emission rates from secondary lead facilities using hierarchical Bayesian models. Environmental Science & Technology, 39(13): 4929-4937.

Boccelli, D. L.; Small, M. J.; Dzombak, D. A. 2005. Enhanced coagulation for satisfying the arsenic maximum contaminant level under variable and uncertain conditions. Environmental Science & Technology, 39(17): 6501-6507.

MacDonald, J. and M.J. Small. 2005. Assessing sites contaminated with unexploded ordnance: Statistical modeling of ordnance spatial distribution. Environmental Science & Technology, 40(3): 931-938.

Weber, C.L., J.M. VanBriesen and M.J. Small. 2006. A stochastic regression approach to analyzing thermodynamic uncertainty in chemical speciation models. Environmental Science & Technology, 40(12): 3872-3878.

McKone, T.E. and M.J. Small. 2007. Integrated environmental assessment, Part III: Exposure assessment. Journal of Industrial Ecology, 11(1): 4-7.