A multimedia environmental model of chemical distribution: Fate, transport, and uncertainty analysis Original Research Article

This paper presented a framework for analysis of chemical concentration in the environment and evaluation of variance propagation within the model. This framework was illustrated through a case study of selected organic compounds of benzo[α]pyrene (BAP) and hexachlorobenzene (HCB) in the Great Lakes region. A multimedia environmental fate model was applied to perform stochastic simulations of chemical concentrations in various media. Both uncertainty in chemical properties and variability in hydrometeorological parameters were included in the Monte Carlo simulation, resulting in a distribution of concentrations in each medium. Parameters of compartmental dimensions, densities, emissions, and background concentrations were assumed to be constant in this study. The predicted concentrations in air, surface water and sediment were compared to reported data for validation purpose. Based on rank correlations, a sensitivity analysis was conducted to determine the influence of individual input parameters on the output variance for concentration in each environmental medium and for the basin-wide total mass inventory.