(299r) Development of Gis-Based Toxic Pollutants Concentration Prediction System in Various Environmental Media

  The human being and ecosystem face environmental risks by accumulation of widespread industrial toxic pollutants (ITPs) in various environmental media such as air, water, soil, vegetation and so on. Reliable assessments of environmental concentration of ITPs are essential for understanding of environmental risks. However, are of those concentrations cannot be detected by monitoring devices because ITPs exist with a low concentration in environmental compartments in general, Hence, an environmental model is needed for predicting ITPs concentrations in variety of environmental media.

  The present study aims at introducing a novel system for predicting environmental concentrations as integrating three specific components: an EGIS (environmental and geographical information system), a MFM (Multimedia Fate Model), and a CV (computer visualization). First, the EGIS allows to improve the accuracy of input spatial data, and to understand relationships between geographical data and environmental variables. EGIS databases (DB) of environmental and geographical data are stored and organized into three types; spatial data, environmental attribute data, and environmental information regardless of spatial data. Environmental attribute data are related to spatial data, which consist of emission source positions, altitudes, distribution of contaminants, monitoring sites, meteorological observatories, and so on. Environmental information regardless of spatial data is composed of chemical and physical properties of ITPs and their toxicities. Secondly, the MFM, as one of the environmental models, has widely been used for estimating environmental concentrations. The certainty of MFM results is affected by the accuracy of geographical information and environmental variables such as emission inventories, meteorological data, monitoring values, chemical and physical properties of pollutants. The MFM is based on Level 4 fugacity model comprised of six bulk compartments: air, surface water, soil, sediment, vegetation, and organic film in this study. This model is able to calculate - using various equations - for 388 chemicals reported by the toxic release inventory (TRI) in Korea. As implementing a link between the EGIS and the MFM, environmental and geographical information in the EGIS is automatically transferred to the MFM and the MFM results are reimported into the EGIS. Finally, the CV, assists model users to analyze environmental risks. In the CV, the graphical user interface (GUI) was developed by visual basic language, WinAPI and DirectX, in order to visualize the geographical information, environmental variables, modeling boundaries, and model (MFM) results.

  An emphasis in the present study is that the systematic integration system can be an effective tool in assessing environmental risks as well as in estimating environmental concentrations of ITPs.