Authors: Imran Maqsood Jianbing Li Guohe Huang Yuefei Huang
Publish Date: 2005/02/17
Volume: 19, Issue: 2, Pages: 146-157
Abstract
Risk assessment of contaminated sites is crucial for quantifying adverse impacts on human health and the environment It also provides effective decision support for remediation and management of such sites This study presents an integrated approach for environmental and health risk assessment of subsurface contamination through the incorporation of a multiphase multicomponent modeling system within a general risk assessment framework The method is applied to a petroleumcontaminated site in western Canada Three remediation scenarios with different efficiencies 0 60 and 90 and planning periods 10 20 40 60 and 80 years later are examined for each of the five potential landuse plans of the study site Then three risky zones with different temporal and spatial distributions are identified based on the local environmental guidelines and the excess lifetime cancer risk criteria The obtained results are useful for assessing potential human health effects when the groundwater is used for drinking water supply They are also critical for evaluating environmental impacts when the groundwater is used for irrigation stockbreeding fish culture or when the site remains the status quo Moreover the results indicate that the proposed method can effectively identify risky zones with different risk levels under various remediation actions planning periods and landuse patterns
Keywords: