A Score Index System for a Semi-Quantitative Assessment of Inhalation Risks at Contaminated Sites

Maria Dalma Mangiapia, Iason Verginelli (), Renato Baciocchi, Maria Paola Bogliolo and Simona Berardi
Additional contact information
Maria Dalma Mangiapia: Department of Civil Engineering and Computer Science Engineering, University of Rome “Tor Vergata”, Via del Politecnico, 1, 00133 Rome, Italy
Iason Verginelli: Department of Civil Engineering and Computer Science Engineering, University of Rome “Tor Vergata”, Via del Politecnico, 1, 00133 Rome, Italy
Renato Baciocchi: Department of Civil Engineering and Computer Science Engineering, University of Rome “Tor Vergata”, Via del Politecnico, 1, 00133 Rome, Italy
Maria Paola Bogliolo: Department of Technological Innovations and Safety of Plants, Products and Anthropic Settlements—National Institute for Insurance against Accidents at Work (INAIL), Via Roberto Ferruzzi 38/40, 00143 Rome, Italy
Simona Berardi: Department of Technological Innovations and Safety of Plants, Products and Anthropic Settlements—National Institute for Insurance against Accidents at Work (INAIL), Via Roberto Ferruzzi 38/40, 00143 Rome, Italy

Sustainability, 2023, vol. 15, issue 14, 1-15

Abstract: Risk assessment of contaminated sites is typically applied following a tiered approach with increasing levels of complexity. In the standard risk-based corrective action (RBCA) procedure issued by the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM), the site-specific evaluation is carried out using fate and transport models that require a relatively large amount of input data. In this work, we introduce a site-specific score index system for a preliminary assessment of the inhalation risks related to contaminants in soil or groundwater that resembles the modeling approaches typically adopted for chemical risk assessment in the field of industrial hygiene. In the developed system, a risk index for the outdoor and indoor volatilization pathways is calculated as the ratio between the calculated concentration at the point of exposure for the contaminant of concern and the corresponding acceptable concentration in air. The concentration at the point of exposure for each contaminant of concern is estimated through simple algorithms that involve a limited number of indexes that depend on the parameters that affect the exposure scenario. This qualitative assessment is then converted into a semi-quantitative approach by introducing scaling factors that were calibrated using the ASTM RBCA fate and transport models. The procedure was validated against the standard RBCA procedure by performing a simple Monte Carlo analysis with 10,000 simulations with randomly varying site-specific parameters. The developed score index system resulted in a conservative estimate of the risks, with percentages of false negatives lower than 1% and false positives lower than 15%. This means that the developed system allows one to screen out sites from further evaluations in more than 80% of cases, while ensuring a conservative estimate of the expected risks. The application to a real case study of a contaminated site confirmed the suitability of the developed approach.

Keywords: contaminated sites; risk assessment; inhalation exposure; screening analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/14/10855/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/14/10855/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:14:p:10855-:d:1191376

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().