Abstract
The impact of a toxic substance on public health depends upon its inherent toxicity, the size and location of the source term, its behavior once released to the environment, the number and type of exposure pathways, and the susceptibility of the exposed population. Because the process of quantifying impact through this sequence of events is inherently uncertain, we refer to the estimated impact using the concept risk. Thus, regulating toxic risks requires consideration of the source, chemical fate, exposure routes, human susceptibility and combined health effects of an ever-increasing list of chemicals. The very magnitude of this list precludes a detailed assessment of each chemical of concern. For this reason there is a demand for comprehensive but not necessarily precise models for quantifying human exposure. Multimedia transport models fill this demand, As Herman Daly (1980) notes, “[i]t is better to deal incompletely with the whole than wholly with the incomplete.”
Work performed under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under Contract W-7405-ENG-48.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Cohen, Y. and Ryan, P. A., 1985, Multimedia modelling of environmental transport: trichloroethylene test case, Environ. Sci.Technol. 19: 412.
Daly, H. E., 1980, Introduction to the steady-state economy, in: “Economics, Ecology, Ethics: Essays Toward a Steady-State Economy”, H. E. Daly, ed., W. H. Freeman, San Francisco.
Evans, J. S., 1985, The value of improved exposure estimates: a decisionanalytic approach, “Proceedings of the 78th Annual Meeting of the Air Pollution Control Association”, Detroit, Michigan.
Frische, R., Klopffer, W., Rippen, G. and Gunther, K-0., 1984, The environmental model segment approach for estimating potential environmental concentrations, Ecotoxicol. Environ. Safety, 8: 352.
Garrels, R. M., MacKenzie, F. T. and Hunt, C., 1975, “Chemical Cycles and the Global Environment: Assessing Human Influences,” William Kaufmann, Los Altos, California.
Hamaker, J. W. and Thompson, J. M., 1972, Absorption, in: “Organic Chemicals in the Soil Environment,” C.A.I. Goring and J. W. Hamaker, eds., Marcel Decker, New York.
International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP), 1975, “Report of the Task Group on Reference Man,” Report 23, Pergamon Press, New York.
International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP), 1977, “Recommendations of the International Commission on Radiological Protection,” Report 26, Pergamon Press, New York.
Kahneman, P., Slovic, P. and Tversky, A., 1982, “Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases,” Cambridge University Press, New York.
Layton, D. W., McKone, T. E., Hall, C. H., Nelson, M. A., and Ricker, Y. E., 1985, “Demilitarization of Conventional Ordnance: Priorities for Data-Base Assessments of Environmental Contaminants,” Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, (Draft) UCRL-53620.
Mackay, D. M., 1979, Finding fugacity feasible, Environ. Sci. Technol., 13: 1218.
Mackay, D. M. and Paterson, S., 1981, Calculating fugacity, Environ. Sci. Technol., 15: 1006.
Mackay, D. M. and Paterson, S., 1982, Fugacity revisited, Environ. Sci. Technol., 16: 654A.
McKone, T. E., 1981, “Chemical cycles and health risks of some toxic crustal nuclides,” Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles.
McKone, T. E., 1985, The use of environmental health-risk analysis for managing toxic substances, “Proceedings of the 78th Annual Meeting of the Air Pollution Control Association,” Detroit, Michigan.
McKone, T. E., Kastenberg, W. E., and Okrent, D., 1983, The use of landscape chemical cycles for indexing the health risk of toxic elements and radionuclides, Risk Analysis, 3: 189.
Morgan, M. G., 1985, Risk assessment and risk management decision-making for chemical exposure, in: “Environmental Exposure From Chemicals,” Vol. II, W. B. Neely and G. E. Blau, eds., CRC Press, Boca Raton, Florida.
National Research Council, 1982, “Risk and Decision Making: Perspectives and Research”, National Academy Press, Washington, D.C.
Okrent, D., 1980, Comment on societal risk, Science 208: 372.
Raiffa, H., Schwartz, W. B., and Weinstein, M. C., 1977, Evaluating health effects of societal decisions and programs, in: “Decision Making in the Environmental Protection Agency,” Volume II, Committee on Environmental Decision Making, Commission on Natural Resources, National Academy of Sciences, Washington, D.C.
Smith, C. F., Cohen, J. J. and McKone, T. E., 1980, “A Hazard Index for Underground Toxic Material,” Technical Report UCRL-52889, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA.
Stumm, W., 1977, “Global Chemical Cycles and Their Alterations by Man,” Abakon Verlagsgesellschaft, Berlin.
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (USNRC), 1977, “Regulatory Guide 1.109: Calculation of Annual Doses to Man from Routine Releases of Reactor Effluents for the Purpose of Evaluating Compliance with 10 CFR Part 50 Appendix I,” Washington, D.C.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1986 Plenum Press, New York
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
McKone, T.E., Kastenberg, W.E. (1986). Application of Multimedia Pollutant Transport Models to Risk Analysis. In: Cohen, Y. (eds) Pollutants in a Multimedia Environment. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-2243-6_9
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-2243-6_9
Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA
Print ISBN: 978-1-4612-9314-9
Online ISBN: 978-1-4613-2243-6
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive