Environmental problems – An overview - Environmental Deterioration and Contamination: Problems and their Management - page 2

Figure 1.1 Conceptual risk model of environmental deterioration.
causing a complex mixture of adverse effects. Protection at the receptor level is much
less efficient than risk reduction in or close to the source somewhere at the beginning
of the transport path, but in some cases we have no other way or tool for reducing risk.
Figure 1.1 shows the conceptual model of the risk posed by physical, chemical
or biological agents coming from point or diffuse sources, going through transport
and other transformations in the environment, and finally reaching the environmental
compartments. This conceptual model describes the transport and fate of the contami-
nant from the source to the receptors. The contaminated environmental compartment
is a continuously changing target, given that the transport and fate processes never
stop. The contaminated environmental compartments - air, water, soil and sediment -
are used by various land users in several ways: occupied by nature or residents, used
by sensitive species or by children in the kindergarten, cultivated as farmland or hobby
gardens, used for recreation or sports and for industrial production or mining. When
using contaminated environments, contaminants and land users may interact closely,
for example, material uptake may take place. Depending on the characteristics and
sensibility of human or ecological communities and individuals using the land, the risk