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Uncertainty in ocean‐dumping health risks: Influence of bioconcentration, commercial fish landings and seafood consumption
Author(s) -
Lipton Joshua,
Gillett James W.
Publication year - 1991
Publication title -
environmental toxicology and chemistry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.1
H-Index - 171
eISSN - 1552-8618
pISSN - 0730-7268
DOI - 10.1002/etc.5620100713
Subject(s) - bioaccumulation , environmental science , bioconcentration , risk assessment , dumping , latin hypercube sampling , health risk , health risk assessment , range (aeronautics) , sewage , contamination , fish <actinopterygii> , consumption (sociology) , fishery , risk analysis (engineering) , environmental health , environmental engineering , ecology , business , biology , statistics , computer science , engineering , monte carlo method , mathematics , social science , computer security , international trade , aerospace engineering , sociology , medicine
Human consumption of marine organisms that have been contaminated by ocean disposal of municipal sewage sludges may pose significant health risks. Previous models of ocean dumping health risk, however, have failed to assess uncertainties associated with model parameters. This failure has resulted in risk assessments that may be misleading to policymakers. Uncertainties regarding contaminant bioaccumulation, commercial fish landings and seafood consumption were incorporated into a model of carcinogenic health risk for two materials found in municipal sewage sludges, dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane and metabolites (DDT‐R) and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). Iterative Latin hypercube simulation was employed to generate probability distributions of health risks. Results indicate that parameter variability and uncertainty, particularly in bioaccumulation models, can lead to a several‐orders‐of‐magnitude range in estimated risk values. This distributional range straddles current risk‐management thresholds, suggesting that ocean disposal of municipal sludges may, indeed, pose substantial health risks to seafood consumers under certain sets of conditions and assumptions. Moreover, if not explicitly considered in risk models, uncertainty can lead to errors in risk‐based decision making.