Risk management of chemicals and contaminated land – from planning to verification - Environmental Deterioration and Contamination: Problems and their Management - page 270

Figure 9.9 Assessment and interpretation tools for the risk management of contaminated sites.
Transport modeling is today a well-developed tool in ERA. A good overview on the
possibilities of risk models allows us to apply the best fitting one from the simplest
to the most sophisticated problems. The most detailed transport and fate models con-
sider all transport routes and phases, partition, biodegradation, and bioaccumulation
of contaminants, as well as food chain effects. Transport models for large areas are
based on watershed-scale data, GIS maps, GIS flow and erosion models, and are being
intensively developed.
After having obtained the assessment data on a contaminated site, evaluation and
interpretation tools are used (Figure 9.9). Transport modeling and exposure modeling
represent both evaluation and interpretation tools of environmental data. The quality
and statistical evaluation of the data are of fundamental importance for the validity
and quality of the assessed risk.
Once the required present and future site risk levels have been established, decision-
support tools can help in selecting and planning the best RR measure. The comparative
evaluation needed for the selection and characterization of the best alternative is based
on quantitative values of costs, time, space, labor requirements, emission, and not
on quantifiable values, such as availability and acceptance of the technology, its envi-
ronmental impacts and many other evaluation criteria (Gruiz et al., 2008). Life cycle
analysis is recommended by Müller & Gaboriau (2009) for generic characterization of
the remediation options taking into account its impact on the global environment. The
selection of ERR measures, typically remediation in most cases, requires site-specific
information such as site geochemistry and hydrogeology, soil type, soil microbiologi-
cal activity and intervention-specific information on the effect of aeration, alternative
electron-acceptors or tensides, enhancement or modification of the activity of soil
microflora.