About S-Risk
What is S-Risk?
S-Risk is a state-of-the-art model for assessing exposure and human health risks at contaminated sites. Fate and distribution of chemical pollutants in soil are calculated according to steady-state conservation of mass principles.
S-Risk is made available in the form of a flexible web application, providing a user-friendly way of specifying and simulating generic scenarios to very specific case studies. The interface allows the user to choose between calculation of soil remediation values, site-specific risk assessment and site-specific remediation objectives. S-Risk provides a list of built-in chemicals and scenarios, but allows to easily modify these chemicals, scenarios and their parameters. This enables the user to adapt the information to his/her site under study, but also to use the model outside its original intended purposes.
History of S-Risk
In consultation with OVAM, VITO has further developed this prototype into a web application, called S-Risk. VITO has been made responsible for the distribution of S-Risk to the accredited soil remediation experts in Flanders and any potential user in or outside Flanders. As of June 2013, the S-Risk web application is operational.
Why S-Risk?
How does it work?
A site’s contamination profile can be entered and is automatically linked to the transfer calculations. Built-in land use scenarios can be modified by the user, defining the exposure pathways and parameters. The model calculates concentrations in ambient and indoor air due to volatilization and soil resuspension, in drinking water from leaching or permeation, in food due to plant and animal uptake. Exposures are predicted for the inhalation route (ambient, indoor, bathroom air), oral (water, food, soil, dust) and dermal (water, soil, dust) route. Calculations are performed for a predefined set of age intervals, ranging from children to adults. Risks are calculated by comparing exposures with toxicological reference values and concentrations with toxicological or legal reference concentrations. Flexibility is offered with regard to critical ages and simultaneous runs for local, systemic and threshold, non-threshold effects.