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MODELS AS A COMPONENT OF DECISION-MAKING AT BROWNFIELDS SITES
Citation:
Weaver, J W. MODELS AS A COMPONENT OF DECISION-MAKING AT BROWNFIELDS SITES. Presented at RevTech Conference, Pittsburg, PA, July 22-24, 2003.
Impact/Purpose:
To assist decision-making by improving approaches to subsurface contaminant transport modeling based on evaluation of field observations and subsequent development of appropriate modeling approaches and tools.
Description:
Models have become an integral part of decision-making for many LUST and Brownfields sites if only because they form the basis of RCBA tiered assessments. Models, though, are based on a series of assumptions concerning how chemicals behave in the environment, how water flows through the ground, even how a contaminant release occurs. How can you identify these assumptions? We'll present a field guide to models that helps identify model assumptions and their impacts on model results. Data is important, too, and we'll show how the amount and quality of available data affect model results. In practice, inputs to models are selected from various sources, including measurements, literature, defaults, estimates, and calibration. A number of these issues are addressed by a set of on-line calculators that EPA developed for assessment of contaminated sites (www.epa.gov/athens/onsite). We'll look at calculators that can be used to estimate parameters, convert units, and assess uncertainties in calculations. Lastly we'll look at ways to evaluate modeling work. Some steps of evaluation of models can be boiled down to nearly a recipe; also needed are knowledge of fate and transport, modeling in general, and the specific details of the model used.