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MULTIMEDIA ENVIRONMENTAL DISTRIBUTION OF TOXICS (MEND-TOX): PART I, HYBRID COMPARTMENTAL-SPATIAL MODELING FRAMEWORK
Citation:
Cohen, Y. AND E J. Cooter. MULTIMEDIA ENVIRONMENTAL DISTRIBUTION OF TOXICS (MEND-TOX): PART I, HYBRID COMPARTMENTAL-SPATIAL MODELING FRAMEWORK. Practice Periodical of Hazardous, Toxic and Radioactive Waste Management. American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), Reston, VA, 6(2):70-86, (2002).
Impact/Purpose:
This task has the following objectives:
Improve modelers' ability to focus on scientific and policy issues in modeling studies by providing software that supports composing, applying, and evaluating complex systems of models.
Improve the understanding of the interaction of the atmosphere and the underlying surface, especially the flux of mass in both directions, and EPA's ability to simulate that interaction.
Contribute to multimedia studies and assessments by applying state-of-the-art atmospheric models, estimating atmospheric contributions to multimedia issues and the sources of those contributions, and evaluating the models' strengths and weaknesses.
Description:
An integrated hybrid spatial-compartmental modeling approach is presented for analyzing the dynamic distribution of chemicals in the multimedia environment. Information obtained from such analysis, which includes temporal chemical concentration profiles in various media, mass distribution and intermedia chemical mass fluxes can be used for subsequent exposure and risk analyses. The hybrid modeling framework consists of both uniform (air, water, suspended solids, vegetation, biota, suspended solids, atmospheric aerosols) and non-uniform (soil and sediment) environmental compartments. The interactive system of model equations for the uniform compartments (ODE's) and non-uniform compartments (one-dimensional PDE's) must be solved simultaneously to ensure conservation of mass. In order for the approach to be of practical use parameter input could be minimized through the use of theoretical or empirical description of intermedia transfer processes and estimation methods for associated intermedia transport parameters. Environmental problems are complex and there are numerous possible multimedia analyses scenarios that may be of interest. Therefore, efficient and user-friendly implementations of such models is essential if multimedia analysis is to become a standard environmental tool.