Local and distant residence times of contaminants in multi-compartment models. Part II: application to assessing environmental mobility and long-range atmospheric transport.
In Part I, the concepts of inherent, local and distant residence times (DRTs) were reviewed as metrics of the extent to which chemical discharges or emissions in one region or box are transported to distant regions. In this second part, the concepts are applied to geographically relevant systems to illustrate their applicability to the assessment of chemicals for long-range transport potential (LRTP). It is shown that the relative ranking of chemicals as characterized by the DRT method is similar to that of the characteristic travel distance concept. A DRT source-receptor matrix is developed that can express the chemical-specific potential of source regions to contaminate a specific receptor region of concern such as the Arctic. The matrix can be modified to identify for a specific source region the likely destinations of emissions as well as to assess the relative vulnerability of regions in the global environment to contaminants of concern.
Reid
Liisa
L
Canadian Environmental Modelling Centre, Trent University, Peterborough, Ontario K9J7B8, Canada.
Mackay
Don
D
D000392:Air Movements; D000393:Air Pollutants / Q000032:analysis*; D001110:Arctic Regions; D004784:Environmental Monitoring / Q000379:methods; D004787:Environmental Pollution / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005843:Geography; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D013995:Time
D000393:Air Pollutants