Environmental Modeling and Health Risk Analysis (Acts/Risk)

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Preface

Environmental Modeling and Health Risk Analysis

(ACTS/RISK)

The purpose of this book is to provide the reader with an integrated perspective on
several fields. First, it discusses the fields of environmental modeling in general and
multimedia (the term “multimedia” is used throughout the text to indicate that
environmental transformation and transport processes are discussed in association
with three environmental media: air, groundwater and surface water pathways)
environmental transformation and transport processes in particular; it also provides
a detailed description of numerous mechanistic models that are used in these fields.
Second, this book presents a review of the topics of exposure and health risk
analysis. The Analytical Contaminant Transport Analysis System (ACTS) and
Health RISK Analysis (RISK) software tools are an integral part of the book and
provide computational platforms for all the models discussed herein. The most
recent versions of these two software tools can be downloaded from the publisher’s
web site. The author recommends registering the software on the web download
page so that users can receive updates about newer versions of the software.
This book is intended to support instruction in environmental quality modeling
in surface water, air and groundwater pathways that are linked to exposure and
health risk analysis. The book is based on the author’s many years of experience in
field applications as well as in classroom teaching on these topics. As such, it should
serve as a valuable tool and reference for practicing professionals as well as for
graduate and undergraduate students. It is currently used as a textbook in the School
of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology in a
senior-level undergraduate class that frequently includes graduate students.
Studies on environmental quality modeling can be traced back to G.I. Taylor’s
seminal work on diffusion processes in 1921. Since then, the scientific field of the
analysis of advection, diffusion and dispersion processes has experienced con-
siderable progress with the introduction of many innovative concepts, principles
and applications. Now, in what may be identified as the field of air and water
quality modeling, there are numerous models which make use of these principles in

v
vi Preface

providing solutions to complex problems. There are a number of excellent textbooks

which are available on air, groundwater and surface water quality modeling, and they
are cited throughout the book. However, this book differs from others in that its first
purpose is to provide an integrated view of basic principles of environmental quality
modeling in these seemingly different media, as well as a comprehensive review of
the analytical models that are available in these fields. The reader will recognize that
the basic principles and modeling tools described in each chapter for air, groundwater
and surface water pathways are very similar, at least in mathematical form. This is
because both air and water are fluids, so the transport and transformation processes in
each medium are governed by similar processes that mathematically follow the same
principles. The author hopes that practicing professionals and students who are
interested in these topics will find this integrated approach useful.
During the past decade, exposure and health risk analysis has also become an
important and inseparable part of environmental assessment. This is primarily
because we, as scientists and engineers, are no longer only interested in environ-
mental characterization, remediation and management, but we are also interested in
health effects or ecosystem hazards associated with pollutants which are present in
the environment or released into the environment. Similarly, numerous models for
exposure and health risk analysis have been developed in the literature as well, and
it is the second purpose of this book to provide an integrated view of these topics
and link them to environmental transformation and transport models.
The models discussed in this book have been coded for easy access and use in
ACTS and RISK. These two software tools have been developed as WINDOWSTM
based applications to provide professionals in environmental engineering and
environmental health with a compact resource for the analytical methods discussed
in this text. These models can be used to evaluate the transport and transformation
of contaminants in multimedia environments (air, surface water, soil and ground-
water) as well as to perform exposure and health risk analysis. The multimedia
transport and transformation models included in this software and reviewed in this
book are state-of-the-art analytic tools that can be used in the analysis of steady
state and time dependent contaminant transformation and transport processes. For
the analysis of cases that may involve uncertainty in input parameters, Monte Carlo
methods have been developed and are dynamically linked with all pathway models
included in the ACTS and RISK software. In the Monte Carlo analysis mode, all or
a selected subset of input parameters of a particular model may be characterized in
terms of statistical distributions provided in the software, allowing statistical dis-
tributions of contaminant concentrations or exposure risk to be evaluated at a
particular exposure point at a particular point in time.
Currently, the total number of environmental transformation and transport and
exposure models that are included in the ACTS and RISK software exceeds 300
(when all subcategory models for each pathway are considered). These models may
be used to evaluate and understand how chemical and pathway specific properties
of the media impact the transformation and transport and the overall exposure and
health risk assessment processes. In addition to serving as a documentation of the
technical background of the models used in the ACTS and RISK software, the book
also serves as the reference document for these software tools.
Author

Dr. Mustafa M. Aral is a professor and the director of the Multimedia Environmental
Simulations Laboratory, a research center at the School of Civil and Environmental
Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia, USA. He received
his B.S. degree in civil engineering from Middle East Technical University, Ankara,
Turkey, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the School of Civil and Environmental
Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology. He specializes in the fields of environ-
mental modeling, water resources engineering, mathematical, numerical and optimi-
zation methods, and exposure and health risk analysis. He is a registered professional
engineer in the State of Georgia with more than 35 years of research and consulting
experience in environmental quality and quantity modeling, environmental fluid
mechanics, optimal management of engineered and environmental systems, site
characterization and health risk assessment studies. Dr. Aral has authored and
co-authored more than 300 technical publications and reports. He is the editor of
the International Journal on Water Quality, Exposure and Health published by
Springer publishers and he is also an associate editor of several other technical
journals in water resources and environmental engineering. Dr. Aral has received
numerous technical awards in publication excellence and research development
categories from several state and federal agencies, and professional organizations.
He is the principal author and developer of the ACTS and RISK software that is used
in this book.

vii
.
Acknowledgements

Writing a book on the complex subject of this book required significant amount of
dedication and time, which most of us give unselfishly to achieve the lifelong
objectives dictated by a career choice we made long ago. We also know that
everything in life is a zero-sum game, i.e. some things must give way to accomplish
others. Over the years, in the course of this project, several things had to give way
and this may be the proper place to acknowledge those, who stood on the sidelines
or who in one way or another contributed to the successful completion of this book.
Foremost among those is my family, whose kindness and support should be
mentioned first. Faculty and research associates of the author, who were instrumen-
tal in the completion of this project are too many to include here without the risk of
omitting some of them in error. However, without any order of priority, I would like
to thank many scientists from the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease
Registry (ATSDR) at the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS),
USA, who supported various activities of our research program at the Georgia
Institute of Technology over the years. Finally, I must also acknowledge the
numerous graduate students who contributed to the overall effort at different stages.
This book is intended to serve as a comprehensive resource for the advance-
ments and contributions made in environmental transformation and transport
modeling in general and the associated health risk assessment topics in particular.
The selection of the title, “Environmental Modeling and Health Risk Analysis”
stems from an ambitious objective of providing a review of air, surface water and
groundwater quality modeling topics and linking these models with exposure and
health risk analysis. Given this broad objective, one quickly recognizes that these
topics cannot be covered at an elementary level. Although every effort has been
made to provide the reader with basic information that is necessary to evaluate and
use the models described in this book, it is expected that the reader will be familiar
with environmental transformation and transport modeling principles, statistical
methods and general modeling concepts at the level of an undergraduate course on
these topics. This preliminary knowledge is necessary for the reader to make full
use of the information and modeling tools provided in this book.

ix
x Acknowledgements

In this information age, what good would a book on multimedia environmental

modeling and health risk analysis be if it is not accompanied by a software tool
that provides the reader with a user-friendly interface to access the models? The
extended title of the book, “ACTS and RISK” reflects the second ambitious goal
of this project. ACTS and RISK are two accompanying software tools that I and
my students developed in a WINDOWS-XPTM based environment. In the ACTS
software tool the analytical solutions of the contaminant transformation and trans-
port models described in the book are included in a user friendly platform which
makes all of these models readily available for use in the analysis of complex
problems that may be described for each pathway. In RISK, the exposure models
described in the book are presented again in a user-friendly platform for the user to
evaluate exposure of populations or individuals to contaminants by linking the
environmental model simulation results to multi-pathway exposure routes that
may exist in the environment. The ACTS and RISK software are linked through
transferable data structures and can be used in an integrated manner first to eva-
luate environmental transformation and transport of contaminants in multimedia
environmental pathways and then to link the results of this analysis to health risk
evaluation. Thus, in addition to being a reference text book for environmental
modeling, this book also serves as the primary resource for the ACTS and RISK
software tools which can be used in practical applications as demonstrated in the
included exercises. Furthermore, both software include a stochastic analysis tool
(Monte Carlo Analysis), that extends the application of all models included in
ACTS and RISK to the stochastic analysis mode. The development of this compre-
hensive software was a very challenging task and could not have been completed
without the contributions of several researchers at Georgia Tech and technical
personnel at ATSDR. I would like to again acknowledge the contributions of
several students and research engineers involved in the development of this soft-
ware. Without their efforts, this project could not have been completed at its present
level. A list of these research faculty and former students are included in the
“contributors list” in Appendix 3. Finally, last but not least, the contributions of
numerous undergraduate students should be acknowledged, who helped with the
debugging of the software application over the years in a classroom environment.

Atlanta, Georgia, USA Mustafa M. Aral

February 2010
Contents

1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1 Environmental Processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1.2 Environmental Modeling Concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
1.3 Environmental Toxicology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
1.4 Exposure Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
1.5 Environmental Risk Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
1.6 Environmental Epidemiology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
1.7 The ACTS and RISK Software . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
1.8 Outline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

2 Principles of Environmental Modeling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

2.1 Modeling Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
2.2 Model Building and Model Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
2.3 Model Calibration, Validation, Verification and Sensitivity
Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
2.4 Model Scales, Error and Uncertainty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
2.5 Methods of Solution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
2.6 Modeling Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

3 Conservation Principles, and Environmental Transformation

and Transport . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
3.1 Transport Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
3.2 Conservation Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
3.3 Sources and Sinks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
3.4 Reactions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
3.5 Boundary and Initial Conditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
3.6 Multi-pathway and Inter-pathway Mass Transport . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

xi
xii Contents

4 Air Pathway Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

4.1 Lapse Rate and Atmospheric Stability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
4.2 Principles of Atmospheric Stability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
4.3 Air Pathway Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
4.4 Air Emission Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
4.4.1 Farmer’s Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
4.4.2 Thibodeaux–Hwang Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
4.4.3 Cowherd Particulate Emission Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
4.4.4 Jury Unsaturated Zone Emission Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
4.4.5 Landfill Gas Emissions Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
4.4.6 Volatilization from Water Bodies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
4.4.7 Air Dispersion Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
4.4.8 Box Air Dispersion Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
4.4.9 Gaussian Air Dispersion Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
4.4.10 Air Dispersion Model Assumptions and Limitations . . . . . . . 148
4.4.11 Indoor Air Dispersion Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
4.4.12 Vapor Concentration at the Contamination Source . . . . . . . . . 152
4.4.13 Diffusion Through the Capillary Zone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
4.4.14 Diffusion Through the Unsaturated Zone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
4.4.15 Building Ventilation Rate and Volumetric Flow Rate . . . . . . 156
4.4.16 Soil Contamination with a Residual Phase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
4.4.17 Parameter Uncertainty Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
4.5 “Chemicals” Database . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
4.6 Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
5 Groundwater Pathway Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
5.1 Definitions and Governing Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188
5.2 Groundwater Pathway Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198
5.3 Saturated Constant Dispersion Coefficient Contaminant Transport
Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202
5.3.1 One-Dimensional Contaminant Transport Models
with Constant Dispersion Coefficient . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202
5.3.2 Two-Dimensional Contaminant Transport Models
with Constant Dispersion Coefficient . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210
5.3.3 Three-Dimensional Contaminant Transport Models
with Constant Dispersion Coefficient . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218
5.4 Multi-species Biodegradation By-Product Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225
5.5 Saturated Variable Dispersion Coefficient Groundwater
Pathway Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231
5.5.1 Mathematical Models for Variable Dispersion Coefficients . . . 232
5.5.2 Solution for Instantaneous Point Injection of a Contaminant
into an Initially Uncontaminated Aquifer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236
5.5.3 Solution for a Continuous Point Source in an Initially
Uncontaminated Aquifer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238
5.5.4 Initial point Concentration Distribution in an Aquifer
Without Injection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240
Contents xiii

5.5.5 Line Initial Concentration Distribution

Without Injection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241
5.5.6 Analytical Solutions for an Instantaneous Line Injection
into an Initially Uncontaminated Aquifer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243
5.5.7 Analytical Solutions for Continuous Line Source
for an Initially Uncontaminated Aquifer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244
5.5.8 Numerical Examples for Variable Dispersion Coefficient
Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246
5.6 Unsaturated Groundwater Pathway Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254
5.6.1 Marino Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254
5.6.2 Jury Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257
5.7 Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273

6 Surface Water Pathway Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275

6.1 Definitions and Governing Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278
6.1.1 Uniform Flow in Open Channels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 280
6.1.2 Mixing Models in Open Channels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283
6.1.3 Elementary Transport Models in the Aquatic Pathway . . . . . . 286
6.1.4 Elementary Transport Models for Small Lakes
and Impoundments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 290
6.2 Surface Water Pathway Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291
6.3 Near Field Mixing Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295
6.3.1 Surface-Point Discharges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297
6.3.2 Submerged-Point Discharges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300
6.3.3 Submerged Multiport Diffusers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304
6.4 Far Field Mixing Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307
6.4.1 Mixing in Rivers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 308
6.4.2 Estuaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313
6.4.3 Small Lakes and Reservoirs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 314
6.4.4 Oceans and Great Lakes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 314
6.5 Surface Water Sediments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 316
6.5.1 River Bed Sediments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317
6.5.2 Estuary Sediments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320
6.5.3 Coastal Waters and Ocean Sediments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 322
6.5.4 Lake Sediments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 322
6.6 Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 324
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 330

7 Uncertainty and Variability Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333

7.1 Probability Theory and Probability Distribution Functions . . . . . . . . 337
7.2 Probability Density Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 341
7.3 Monte Carlo Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 348
7.4 Interpretation of the Results of the Monte Carlo Analysis . . . . . . . . . 349
7.5 When an Uncertainty Analysis Will be Useful and Necessary . . . . 352
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 354
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8 Health Risk Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 357

8.1 USEPA Guidelines on Baseline Health Risk Assessment . . . . . . . . . 358
8.2 Exposure Intake Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 364
8.2.1 Intake Model for Ingestion of Drinking Water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 366
8.2.2 Intake Model for Ingestion while Swimming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 366
8.2.3 Intake Model for Dermal Intake . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 367
8.2.4 Intake Model for Intake Via Soil, Sediment or Dust . . . . . . . . . 368
8.2.5 Intake Model for Dermal Absorption of Soil, Sediment
and Dust . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 368
8.2.6 Intake Model for Air Intakes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 368
8.2.7 Intake Model for Ingestion of Fish and Shellfish . . . . . . . . . . . . 369
8.2.8 Intake Model for Ingestion of Vegetables and other Produce . . 369
8.2.9 Intake Model for Ingestion of Meat, Eggs
and Dairy Products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 369
8.3 Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 369
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 376

9 Application: Pesticide Transport in Shallow Groundwater

and Environmental Risk Assessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 379
9.1 Problem Description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 380
9.2 Background on Site and Contamination Conditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 381
9.2.1 Health and Regulatory Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 381
9.2.2 Site Geology and Hydrogeology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 385
9.2.3 Chemical and Contaminant Properties of BHC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 385
9.3 Method of Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 386
9.3.1 Modeling Approach and Assumptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 386
9.3.2 Model Input Parameters and Source Definition
for Deterministic Simulations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 387
9.3.3 Model Input Parameters for Probabilistic Simulations . . . . . . . 392
9.4 Modeling Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 394
9.4.1 Deterministic Model Simulations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 395
9.4.2 Probabilistic Model Simulations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 396
9.5 Discussion of Results and Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 401
9.6 Limitations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 403
9.7 Practical Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 404
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 405

Appendix 1 .................................................................... 409

Appendix 2 .................................................................... 417
Appendix 3 .................................................................... 439
Appendix 4 .................................................................... 459
Appendix 5 .................................................................... 463

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 465
Chapter 1
Introduction

It is no longer a question of just staying healthy.

It’s also a question of avoiding exposure.

We begin with the premise that “all environmental issues will sooner or later lead
to environmental health concerns.” Given this premise, one may immediately
recognize that the analysis and solution of complex problems in the environmental
health field require the involvement of multidisciplinary teams and a multitude of
methods. An important characteristic of these multidisciplinary teams and methods
is that they originate from diverse scientific backgrounds and scientific fields which
may initially seem to be disconnected. These fields include engineering, medicine,
health sciences, biology, chemistry, toxicology, epidemiology, mathematics and
physics. Most commonly, these research and implementation teams are composed
of scientists and engineers who may specialize in more than one of these fields.
Similarly, the solutions to the problems we face in the environmental health field
require knowledge or expertise in more than one of these fields. This makes the
environmental health field all the more interesting and challenging, albeit more
complex. If we search for a simplified umbrella for this emerging scientific field, we
can state that the environmental health sciences exists at the interfaces of two
scientific fields: the interfaces of the environmental sciences and the epidemiology
and toxicology fields of health sciences.
In order to provide some historical perspective we will start with a review of
the evolution of environmental management paradigms that have been used in this
field (Aral 2009). Over several decades environmental scientists, economists, phy-
sicists, social scientists, health scientists and public health officials have worked
on critical issues in environmental health management in order to find a feasible
medium between limited resources, long-term demands, environmental impacts,
health effects and conflicting interest groups. During the last several decades, our
focus has shifted from one extreme to another in our search for a solution to this
multidimensional problem. Decades ago, the management models we implemented
first passed through a period which may be labeled as the Frontier Economics period.

M.M. Aral, Environmental Modeling and Health Risk Analysis (ACTS/RISK), 1

DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-8608-2_1, # Springer ScienceþBusiness Media B.V. 2010
2 1 Introduction

During this stage, little attention was paid to the environment or the environmental
impact of human activities. It was assumed that the environment would yield
abundant resources and supplies, and scientists and engineers concentrated on
developing those resources without regard to adverse environmental outcomes.
The training, education and development of individuals in related sciences concen-
trated on resource-based activities, and significant advances were made in the area of
resource identification, utilization and exploitation.
After realizing the environmental destruction caused by this approach, the
pendulum swung to the other extreme and we entered a period, that may be
identified as Radical Environmentalism. The associated management philosophy
assumed that environmental resources are limited and should be protected without
any regard to economic and other considerations. During this phase, scientific
studies concentrated on the development of narrowly based natural sciences,
and significant scientific advances were made in fundamental topics of compart-
mentalized basic sciences. In training and education the emphasis was placed on
environmental preservation and naturalism.
When the economic burden of the Radical Environmentalism period was
realized, environmental policies shifted again to a period that may be identified
as the Resource Management or Resource Allocation period. This paradigm con-
sidered the environment to be a subset of economics, in realization of the fact that,
we should consider the environment and environmental issues while developing our
economic resources. The development of the concepts of environmental mitigation
and assessment, and the “those who pollute will pay” mentality belongs to this stage
of environmental management. Regulatory environmental laws in the U.S. such as
the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RECRA), the Comprehensive
Environmental Response, the Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA) and
the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act (SARA) are the outcome of
this period’s policies. In this period, the multidisciplinary scientific specializations
that evolved were a significant improvement over the traditional partitioning of
sciences. Multidisciplinary programs and an emphasis on multidisciplinary training
and education also resulted from the policies of this environmental management
strategy.
During the Resource Management era the environment still suffered because the
controls imposed on the environment were materialistic, not naturalistic. This style
of environmental management did not fit well with environmentalists, and thus
came the era of Selective Environmentalism. This environmental management style
considers economic issues as a subset of environmental issues. With this phase we
entered the era of environmental preservation and planning, and the development of
environmentally-friendly technologies and products followed. Scientific develop-
ments concentrated on multidisciplinary specializations within traditional natural
and basic sciences.
In the environmental management models described above, only two variables of
concern were emphasized, i.e. the economy and the environment. In selecting a
specific strategy one aspect was always given priority over the other. At this point, it
became clear to scientists and also more importantly to the general public that
1 Introduction 3

neither of these models were considering harmonious ways of combining these two
variables. A review and combination of the better parts of the earlier management
philosophies revealed the concept of Sustainable Environmental Management as the
resolution of the conflict between these two variables. The basic philosophy behind
this approach was outlined in the Brundtland World Commission on Environment
and Development report (Colby 1990). In this approach the environment and
economics are considered to be parts of a mutually supporting ecosystem. Long-
term issues and long-term solutions became a key consideration for this model.
In this evolution, it is not very difficult to anticipate the next step if one asks the
right questions. The proper questions to ask may be: “Can there be a global or
uniform environmental policy and a management model?” “Based on their char-
acteristics, should different issues, different regions and different applications have
unique environmental management strategies?”; and “Are we really worried about
proper environmental management strategies for the sake of the environment and
economics, or are there other reasons?” It seems that there is a more important
reason behind this evolution that led us to the concept of sustainable environmental
management. We now realize that one of the main purposes of our search for a
proper environmental management model is the protection of populations from
adverse environmental stressors which may lead to detrimental health effects.
These effects, which are an outcome of the selected environmental management
strategy, may be economic or environmental in nature, or directly related to health
effects. When we include the concept of “health effects” in the overall picture and
emphasize and recognize its importance, the policies, principles and methods we
work with will change considerably. In the earlier management models that were
discussed above the “health effects” issue was not forgotten, but it was not
emphasized as the primary policy issue. In the earlier management models health
effects appeared mostly as a concept, as an issue to worry about, measure, document
and possibly correct. Again, in the environmental management models summarized
above, the emphasis on health effects appears to be more pronounced when the
management model emphasizes environmental concerns rather than economic ones.
When we realize the importance and the depth of the “health effects” concept, we will
quickly abandon the philosophy of the Sustainable Environmental Management,
mainly because it still reflects a two-dimensional perspective of a three-dimensional
problem (Aral 2005).
Now we should expand the preliminary premise that is stated at the beginning of
this chapter. The premise that considers a multitude of present-day environmental
issues can be restated as: All human interventions to natural environments, our
demand for built environments and natural or forced disasters will sooner or later be
associated with health issues.
Based on this premise, it is clear that all environmental intrusion will have
health effect implications imbedded in them. This is apparent and repeatedly
acknowledged in most current studies on environmental management. Accordingly,
the next stage of environmental management model we work with may be identified
as Environmental Management for Sustainable Populations. Here the term environ-
ment implies built and/or natural environments. In this management model, the goal
4 1 Introduction

will be the long-term harmonious management of economic resources and environ-

mental preservation, for the health, safety and prosperity of sustainable populations.
Policy decisions that will be made in this phase will now explicitly include a very
complex element, i.e. the dynamic and also very delicate “population” or “human”
element. When populations are explicitly included in the overall management
framework, social policy, ethics and health issues assume a very important role in
the management strategy. It can be anticipated that in order to identify and resolve
the problems of this management style, scientists from the fields of social sciences,
public policy, health sciences, basic sciences, and also engineering need to work
more closely together than they have in the past. To establish this working environ-
ment more barriers need to be broken, new rules need to be established, and more
importantly, a common language has to be introduced. Technological, scientific and
holistic advances made in each field need to be translated into this common
language and put to use for the ultimate goal of maintaining sustainable popula-
tions. In this approach economic incentives and environmental constraints have to
be considered harmoniously, with the main emphasis placed on the protection and
preservation of human health and sustainability of populations.
As expected, this management model will require the collaboration of various
disciplines in the overall framework. When scientists from diverse backgrounds
are involved in an applied or theoretical problem, the first issue that needs to be
addressed is the difference in technical language used by the team members and
the implied meaning and importance of the terms, as well as the expectations for
the input data requirements of a specific problem and the expectations for the
outcome of the individual and team effort. For these issues to be resolved in a
harmonious way, members of the team should spend considerable effort on learning
the terminology and expectations for each other’s scientific fields and the limita-
tions or boundaries of knowledge that a team member may bring to the group. In the
following chapters of this book our goal is to define this common language, and
provide an understanding of data requirements and the uncertainty in input data as
well as in outcomes. We strive to do this as much as possible from an environmental
modeling perspective, without creating a new language or principles of our own.
In this book, the discussion of this topic starts with a discussion of environmental
transformation and transport concepts. Toxic perturbations introduced by humans
on the present-day earth have raised fundamental questions about our under-
standing of various processes in environmental, geochemical and biological cycles,
and in the transformation of the toxic substances in multimedia environments. More
and more, scientists are recognizing that the environment must be considered as a
whole, and scientific and regulatory approaches alike must take into account the
complex interactions between multimedia and inter-media pathways to understand
the propagation of these toxic perturbations in the environment. These observations
have imposed new demands on environmental and health scientists for under-
standing the interactions between these cycles and their effect on the environment
and ultimately on human health.
We must also distinguish the difference between the two synonymous terms that
are used routinely in this field, namely contamination and pollution. These two
1 Introduction 5

terms appear frequently in the technical literature and also in the common language
but may be used in different contexts when transformation and transport processes
are considered as opposed to environmental health concerns. Contamination is
commonly associated with the presence of an alien substance in the environment.
The adverse effects of this alien substance are not implied. Pollution is commonly
associated with adverse ecological or health effects. Contamination that is present
in the environment at low concentrations and thus does not cause adverse envi-
ronmental or health effects, should not be confused with pollution. This definition
conforms to the observation that there are naturally occurring contaminants in the
environment and most of them do not cause health hazards at low concentration
levels. It is when these contaminant levels exceed a certain threshold and cause
health effects that they are classified as environmental pollution. That is the case
with arsenic, which exists in most soils around the world as a contaminant.
However, the contaminant levels of arsenic observed in the delta of Bangladesh
elevates it to a pollution level with significant health effects outcome (Meharg
2005).
Contaminants released into the environment are distributed among environmen-
tal media such as air, water, soil and vegetation as a result of complex physical,
chemical and biological processes. Thus, environmental pollution by contaminants
is a multimedia and multi-pathway migration problem, and environmental assess-
ment, exposure risk assessment and the design of appropriate environmental reme-
diation and exposure evaluation methods require that we carefully consider the
transport, transformation, and accumulation of pollutants in the environment as a
whole. Methods proposed to evaluate environmental or exposure characterization
in this envirosphere must consider all pathways and the interactions between these
pathways. In the scientific literature, the multimedia approach to environmental and
exposure analysis is identified as Total Environmental Characterization (TEC) or
Total Exposure Analysis (TEA) (Fig. 1.1). Applied or theoretical research activities

EXPOSURE PATHWAY

EXPOSURE
POINT

SOURCE
EXPOSURE PATHWAY

Fig. 1.1 Multimedia environmental exposure pathways