APPLYING DIFFERENT CONTAMINATION SOURCE GEOMETRIES IN HEALTH RISK ASSESSMENT DUE TO INGESTION OF CONTAMINATED GROUNDWATER

Abstract

Health Risk Assessment is commonly developed employing the Domenico solution for groundwater contaminant transport passing through a vertical plane normal to the groundwater flow. This solution does not apply in situations for which the contamination source geometry is not a vertical plane, such as trenches, injection wells, etc. Hence, a set of analytical solutions for different source geometries were presented. For comparison, vertical plane and prism geometries were selected to verify their influences over the contaminant plume simulations and their implications over the estimation of the risk of carcinogenic adverse effects due to groundwater ingestion contaminated by benzene. The results demonstrated small differences over the equilibrium concentration simulations, not interfering significantly in the healthy risk estimation.