Abstract
In recent years, environmental pollution caused by synthetic chemicals has become of serious issue. The prediction of environmental fate of chemicals which have relatively short life is important for the evaluation of their environmental safety in a specific area. In this paper, a concrete procedure for prediction and a method for determination of the volume of environmental compartment were proposed. As for the determination method of compartment volume, the hight of air compartment for the specific area which range from 102 to 104 km2 was proposed to be 1000 m or less. Furthermore, a modified kinetic model taking into account the non-diffusive transfer processes from soil to water and from air to soil and/or water was proposed. Using the proposed procedure and the model, the concentrations of the organochlorine solvents such as trichloroethylene and tetrachloroethylene in the air which was the main compartment for those solvents were predicted in an urban area. Since the predicted values agreed with the measured data, it was proved that the proposed method was appropriate for the prediction of fate of the chemicals in a specific area.
