Modeling Impacts to Receptors

The objective of many contaminant transport studies is to not only compute contaminant concentrations or flux rates at various locations in the environment, but to also compute the impact of these contaminants on specific receptors (e.g., humans, wildlife, flora).

This is typically done by multiplying contaminant concentrations in environmental media Materials (such as water, sand, clay, air) that constitute (are contained within) transport pathways. GoldSim provides two types of elements for defining media: Fluids and Solids. (e.g., water, soil, air) by user-defined impact conversion factors. Impact conversion factors Species- and receptor-specific factors that convert concentrations in environmental media to impacts to receptors. They have dimensions of impact per unit concentration, and are vectors in GoldSim (by species). are species The chemical (or non-chemical, such as bacterial or viral) constituents that are stored and transported through an environmental system in a contaminant transport model. In GoldSim, the Species element defines all of the contaminant species being simulated (and their properties).- and receptor A group (usually of people) that could potentially receive impacts from contaminants in the environment. In GoldSim, a Receptor is an element that converts contaminant concentrations in the environment to impacts to a receptor group.-specific and have dimensions An output attribute for an element that defines the dimensionality (in terms of Length, Time and other fundamental dimensions) of the output. of impact per unit concentration.

GoldSim allows you to define specific receptors, and associate these with various pathways in your environmental system. The total impact to a receptor is then computed as the sum of the impacts associated with each pathway through which the receptor is exposed to the contaminant (e.g., drinking water from a well, breathing dust in the atmosphere, ingesting soil).

Impacts may be calculated as:

• ratios of contaminant concentrations to permissible limits (i.e., hazard quotients);
• health (e.g., cancer) risks; or
• radioactive doses.