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Improved exposure estimation in soil screening and cleanup criteria for volatile organic chemicals
Author(s) -
DeVaull George E
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
integrated environmental assessment and management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.665
H-Index - 57
eISSN - 1551-3793
pISSN - 1551-3777
DOI - 10.1002/ieam.1917
Subject(s) - volatilisation , environmental chemistry , organic chemicals , soil water , environmental science , exposure assessment , volatile organic compound , chemistry , soil science , mathematics , statistics , organic chemistry
Soil cleanup criteria define acceptable concentrations of organic chemical constituents for exposed humans. These criteria sum the estimated soil exposure over multiple pathways. Assumptions for ingestion, dermal contact, and dust exposure generally presume a chemical persists in surface soils at a constant concentration level for the entire exposure duration. For volatile chemicals, this is an unrealistic assumption. A calculation method is presented for surficial soil criteria that include volatile depletion of chemical for these uptake pathways. The depletion estimates compare favorably with measured concentration profiles and with field measurements of soil concentration. Corresponding volatilization estimates compare favorably with measured data for a wide range of volatile and semivolatile chemicals, including instances with and without the presence of a mixed‐chemical residual phase. Selected examples show application of the revised factors in estimating screening levels for benzene in surficial soils. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2017;13:861–869. © 2017 The Authors. Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of Society of Environmental Toxicology & Chemistry (SETAC)