Health Risk Assessment and Vapor Intrusion: A Review and Australian Perspective

ABSTRACT Soil contamination by volatile hydrocarbons is of public health importance due to vapor intrusion and indoor inhalation exposures. These are assessed using measurement or predictive modeling and need to consider the key areas of subsurface partitioning and transport, dwelling ventilation, and receptor inhalation dosimetry. While subsurface partitioning and transport have been subject to intensive international investigation, limited consideration has been given to the latter. Building ventilation research has developed multi-zone airflow and contaminant dispersal models including AccuRate, an Australian model that examines natural ventilation modeling, roof and sub-floor ventilation, and identifies the importance of geometry and thermal factors on ventilation (the most sensitive variable) and indoor pollutant concentrations. Inhalation dosimetry has received recent attention due to concerns over child inhalation susceptibility and dose metrics. Research using coupled computational fluid dynamics ...