1st International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software - Lugano, Switzerland - June 2002
Keywords
contaminated sites, risk assessment, multi-criteria decision analysis, remediation technologies
Start Date
1-7-2002 12:00 AM
Abstract
The rehabilitation of contaminated sites is a complex process encompassing technological, environmental, socio-economic aspects. These aspects show close spatial and temporal inter-relations. Moreover, mega-sites (hundreds of hectares wide) require properly designed Decision Support Systems (DSS). In this work, a DEcision Support sYstem for the REqualification of contaminated sites (DESYRE) is proposed for the identification of the most effective rehabilitation interventions. The DSS is based on a Geographic Information System (GIS) framework and integrates environmental and technological databases, risk assessment models, and multi criteria procedures. It is composed of five modules: (1) characterisation, (2) risk, (3) socio-economical and (4) technological analysis, and (5) decision. The characterisation module provides all the available information on the site (e.g. chemical and hydrogeological data). It can be explored by means of GIS tools and its database is available as input to statistical and geo-statistical software, as well as to hydrogeological and contaminant fate and transport models. Moreover, it provides the definition of efficient sampling strategies, definition of contaminant distribution, prediction of transport processes and input parameters for the risk assessment module. The risk assessment module includes exposure and risk assessment models and provides outputs such as risk maps. The socio-economical assessment module addresses socio-economical constraints and benefits. The technological assessment module allows feasibility, advantages, limits and costs of different techniques to be assessed. Information from the three assessment modules, mainly in the form of indicators, are integrated in the final decisional module by means of the multi-criteria analysis (MCDA), which can play a key-role to simplify effectively this process. In the proposed DESYRE framework, the MCDA tools appear twice. When a pool of suitable technologies is to be defined, a MCDA module assigns a score to each technologies on the basis of key-criteria. In a second level, each remediation scenario proposed by the Expert is evaluated by the Decision Makers in a Group Decision Making context. The project is in progress: framework and methodology aspects were already defined, and a preliminary application was undertaken for the megasite, industrial district of Porto Marghera (ca. 3,000 ha), located on the border of the Venice lagoon. The selection of the specific MCDA options is under way.
DESYRE – DEcision Support sYstem for REhabilitation of contaminated sites: objectives and structure
The rehabilitation of contaminated sites is a complex process encompassing technological, environmental, socio-economic aspects. These aspects show close spatial and temporal inter-relations. Moreover, mega-sites (hundreds of hectares wide) require properly designed Decision Support Systems (DSS). In this work, a DEcision Support sYstem for the REqualification of contaminated sites (DESYRE) is proposed for the identification of the most effective rehabilitation interventions. The DSS is based on a Geographic Information System (GIS) framework and integrates environmental and technological databases, risk assessment models, and multi criteria procedures. It is composed of five modules: (1) characterisation, (2) risk, (3) socio-economical and (4) technological analysis, and (5) decision. The characterisation module provides all the available information on the site (e.g. chemical and hydrogeological data). It can be explored by means of GIS tools and its database is available as input to statistical and geo-statistical software, as well as to hydrogeological and contaminant fate and transport models. Moreover, it provides the definition of efficient sampling strategies, definition of contaminant distribution, prediction of transport processes and input parameters for the risk assessment module. The risk assessment module includes exposure and risk assessment models and provides outputs such as risk maps. The socio-economical assessment module addresses socio-economical constraints and benefits. The technological assessment module allows feasibility, advantages, limits and costs of different techniques to be assessed. Information from the three assessment modules, mainly in the form of indicators, are integrated in the final decisional module by means of the multi-criteria analysis (MCDA), which can play a key-role to simplify effectively this process. In the proposed DESYRE framework, the MCDA tools appear twice. When a pool of suitable technologies is to be defined, a MCDA module assigns a score to each technologies on the basis of key-criteria. In a second level, each remediation scenario proposed by the Expert is evaluated by the Decision Makers in a Group Decision Making context. The project is in progress: framework and methodology aspects were already defined, and a preliminary application was undertaken for the megasite, industrial district of Porto Marghera (ca. 3,000 ha), located on the border of the Venice lagoon. The selection of the specific MCDA options is under way.
