T33 - Symposium
Software Tools for Risk-Based Decision Making and Scenario PlanningScotland C 3:30-5:00 pm
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| Chair(s): T. Sullivan
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Environmental contamination of lands is wide spread and often requires remediation prior to reuse of the land. Decisions made about site-specific land use planning and remediation alternatives are based on a variety of factors. Risk from chemical exposures for humans and wildlife are often weighed against future use value, remediation cost, technical feasibility, and political considerations. Risk analysis techniques to support decision making have been implemented into software tools that address human and ecological risks, cost/benefit, and societal issues. Often this has led to large system models that contain submodels for all of the possible conditions that could occur. The software is often cumbersome to use and contains information requirements (data) for processes and events that are irrelevant to the problem at hand. In addition, they often do not treat explicitly the impact of uncertainties on the decision process. This symposia will cover the newest developments in software tools for providing decision support for land use planning for environmentally contaminated sites. The symposium will emphasize improvements in the treatment of uncertatinty and producing more flexible and easy to use tools for decision support. Four papers are proposed covering a) ARAMS (Army Risk Assessment and Modeling System), b) QnD (Question and Decisions) a spatially explicit risk assessment tool, c) advances in decision support tools for remediation/restoration of contaminated lands, and d) progress on Multi Criteria Decision Analysis tools for contaminated land reuse.
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T33.1 Development of a Risk-based Decision Support Tool for Contaminated Land Reuse. Sullivan T., Grebenkov A., Linkov I., Yatsalo B.; Brookhaven National Laboratory TSullivan@bnl.gov
Abstract: Environmental contamination has occurred at a large number of military and industrial sites in the world including the Former Soviet Union. Future land use options depend on a number of site-specific metrics such as human and ecological risks, remedial options and their technical feasibility, land use options, time required to remediate the land, and costs. Selection of the appropriate choice for future land use often requires a balance between these different measures. A new project sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy’s International Proliferation Prevention program teams scientists from the Former Soviet Union and the U.S. to address this problem. This project will develop risk-based protocols for systematically and reproducibly assessing the environmental value of sites having varying degrees of anthropogenic disturbance and contamination. The methodology will be implemented as a comprehensive but modular software package focused on supporting decisions for land use with multiple and often conflicting measures of success. The software will be designed such that the applications will be focused on the processes and events at the site without the overhead of incorporating all processes as is typically done in most software packages. It is anticipated that parts of many of the software programs discussed in this symposium will be incorporated into this risk-based decision support tool. The multi-attribute framework will allow for the comparison of alternatives based on established criteria of efficiency, response time, spatial and temporal disturbance of habitats, resulting environmental exposures, ecological risks and costs. After development, the risk-based decision protocol will be applied to assess the environmental and economic value of two sites in the Former Soviet Union that are in the process of deciding future land use options.
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T33.2 ARAMS, an Aid for Risk-Based Decisions. Dortch M.S. *, Gerald J.A.; U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center Mark.S.Dortch@erdc.usace.army.mil
Abstract: The U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC), in collaboration with the U.S. Army Center for Health Promotion and Preventive Medicine (CHPPM), developed an adaptive risk assessment modeling system for the Army, referred to as ARAMS. ARAMS is a computer-based, information delivery and data analysis system that integrates multimedia fate/transport, exposure, uptake, and effects of contaminants to assess human and ecological health impacts and risks. ARAMS is based on the widely accepted risk paradigm of integrating exposure and effects assessments to characterize risk. An object-oriented framework, referred to as FRAMES, for linking disparate modules provides the adaptive feature, thus, allowing assessment of a wide assortment of exposure-risk scenarios. ARAMS was originally developed to address risk-based cleanup requirements, but it has other utility made possible through the coupling of time-varying fate/transport models. Multi-media (e.g., air, soil, surface water, vadose zone, and groundwater) fate/transport models are linked within FRAMES for exposure assessment making ARAMS unique as a risk assessment tool since exposure and risk can be extended over the time dimension to evaluate future risks. This feature adds tremendous utility by providing future exposure and risks associated with various planned operations, management scenarios, resource use, and other factors, including various levels of cleanup and natural attenuation. Additionally, rather complex pathways can be modeled since the model linkages track contaminant movement across media. Exposure scenarios can be set up and run relatively quickly allowing rapid evaluation and comparison of results for various “what if” conditions. An example application of ARAMS is presented that demonstrates the utility for assisting with risk-based decisions.
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T33.3 A Software for Ranking of Available Countermeasures Applied to Radioactively Contaminated Environment. Grebenkov A.J.*, Yakushau A.P.; Joint Institute for Power & Nuclear Research “Sosny”, Belarus greb@sosny.bas-net.by
Abstract: The cost of countermeasures includes all efforts made by the society in decreasing the environmental risk to an acceptable level, and it is normally expressed in monetary terms. The countermeasure monetary evaluation is based on the conventional economic concept that takes into account actual expenses and their distribution in time. It results from combination of the capital cost of countermeasure and subsequent operation and maintenance cost. The NPV and IRR parameters allow evaluating a countermeasure from cost effectiveness point of view. Obviously, the countermeasure that has largest value of NPV is the most cost effective one. Along with IRR, this can be used for comparison and rating different countermeasures and selection of the most economically attractive remediation strategy. The task of evaluation of optimal measure (a set of measures) can be formalized as a minimization process applied to several functions based on a product of the matrices responsible for environmental contamination, transport of contaminants through forage chains, effectiveness of different clean-up (countermeasure) techniques designed for specified contaminant(s), cost of available technologies(s), and a monetary equivalents for averted risks from exposures to specified contaminants. The suggested model can find a direct task resolution implying specification and ranking of territories/objects where countermeasures should be implemented, choice of the countermeasures, evaluation of corresponding means (finance, materials), assessment of effectiveness and analysis of alternatives, and finally, development of a rehabilitation plan. When an inverse task is considered, experts have to choose such a countermeasure (or a set of countermeasures) which would optimally meet a given criteria and satisfy a foreseeable constraints (financial, ecological, social, political, and so on). Whatever the case, the proposed model gives an opportunity to evaluate and validate the main economical aggregates that is one of the most important attributes of MCDA process.
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T33.4 QnD: a tool for scenario and decision planning. Kiker G.A., Kiker M.K., Linkov I.; University of Florida, Zama Environmental, Cambridge Environmental Inc. gkiker@ufl.edu
Abstract: The Questions and Decisions (QnD) model system has been developed as a spatially explicit risk assessment tool which combines both mechanistic modeling and scenario-based, value-laden planning. It can integrate technical data (such as monitoring and model predictions) with ideas that are derived from expert knowledge and experience. A site- or problem-specific QnD version can be constructed through structured conversations with experts, stakeholders and decision-makers. The scenarios and options desired by the stakeholders are created through configurable objects within QnD environment designed to be quickly made and altered through subsequent learning and iteration.
QnD represents spatial and temporal evolvement of the modeled ecosystem through-through a combinations of component, process and data objects that are constructed through the use of XML-based input files. This design allows different ecosystem/habitat/organism/chemical combinations to be efficiently formed, simulated and documented. The QnD model has been created as a game to stimulate discussions and analysis among managers, scientists and stakeholders who are working increasingly closely within an adaptive management context. Several case studies using QnD and scenario gaming are provided showing the utility of the tool within the scenario analysis process. The flexibility of the model is demonstrated through its application to ecosystems of differing scale and management objectives.
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T33.5 Decision-Making Support for Risk Based Land Management and Sustainable Restoration of Contaminated Territories Using PRANA DSS. YATSALO B., MIRZEABASOV O., DIDENKO V., LINKOV I.; Obninsk State Technical University of Nuclear Power Engineering, Obninsk, Russia; Cambridge Environmental Inc. Cambridge, MA, USA, yatsalo@prana.obninsk.org
Abstract: Risk-based management of contaminated sites requires implementation of various risk assessment models as well as analysis of different scenarios for site restoration. Comparative risk analysis, cost-benefit analysis, and incorporation of both expert judgments and stakeholder values are often necessary. We will present the PRANA Decision Support System, a comprehensive software package for supporting remedial and abatement policy decisions for large areas contaminated by radionuclides. The software was developed using GIS-technologies as part of a large scale international collaborative effort involving several European countries. PRANA includes tools necessary for selecting optimal remedial and abatement measures both at local and regional levels. PRANA DSS links together vector electronic maps of land use with databases (radiological, ecological, economic, demographic, and other data and model parameters) and models for assessing contamination of agricultural produce, doses to the population, risk and results of countermeasure implementation, and evaluation of countermeasure effectiveness. PRANA also calculates risk indices (before and after countermeasures) and evaluates various remedial alternatives. Implementation of PRANA methodology to other sites will be discussed.
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