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(T/MF170) Prediction of environmental concentrations of chemicals by a fate model and PRTR data in Japan. Kawamoto, Katsuya1, 1 ABSTRACT- It is a very important procedure to estimate environmental emission of chemicals from various sources in order to predict environmental distributions of contaminant concentrations with a multimedia fate model. Pollutants release and transfer register (PRTR) may be available as a useful source to estimate the emission of chemicals though PRTR has limited accuracy in the estimation. In this study, concentrations of 26 compounds in air, water and sediments were predicted in a regional area by adopting EUSES model under specific assumptions. Measured concentrations obtained in the area were compared with predicted results. As for acrylonitrile, dichloromethane and o-, p-xylenes, compounds that are rather volatile and are used as industrial solvents and raw materials for synthetic polymers, the predicted concentrations in air were in good agreement with the monitoring data with predicted or measured data being within three times as high as the other. On the other hand, concentrations of formaldehyde and acetaldehyde were fairly underestimated. Possible cause of this underestimation is their synthesis by photochemical reaction in ambient air. Although most of the target compounds are industrial chemicals used in volume, there were few monitoring data especially in water and sediment environment, therefore, it was indeed difficult to compare the predicted concentrations. The prediction of concentrations will be useful for further risk assessment in this case. Besides, interesting topics with respect to the precision of PRTR data, environmental distribution and transport of contaminants are discussed. Key words: multimedia fate model, prediction, environmental concentration, PRTR |
