Integration of substance flow analysis, transport and fate of materials in the environment, and environmental risk assessment for provision of information for regional environmental management: cadmium as a case study in Australia

Extraction, production, utilization and disposal of material resources have been undertaken continuously for much of human histories. Unavoidably, all of these activities have disturbed our environment, and subsequently have been harmful to humans and ecosystems in this and future generations. Due to time lag associated with both environment impact and the effects of measures taken to reduce this impact, existing approaches (i.e. monitoring and reacting) do not give sufficiently rapid feedback for effective environmental management. With regard to the complexity and concern related to environment-health chain effects, there is currently no environmental tool or approach that can provide comprehensive information and indicators covering all major environment and health themes, to enable decision makers to make informed judgements about regional policies and plans, relating to the sustainable use and disposal of material resources. Consequently, there is a need for developing a new approach by taking account of a multidisciplinary concept used in this thesis. Substance Flow Analysis (SFA) has been mainly applied in order to provide input information for Health Risk Assessment (HRA). The SFA approach provides the quantity of the substance that is transported (flows) and stored in the system (stock), and of which sub-system, flow, and process is the greatest concern. The HRA approach provides estimates of human health risk associated with site, activity and facility. An environmental fate and transport model is another key knowledge area incorporated into the HRA process. An integrating method of SFA, environmental fate and transport, and HRA is developed and illustrated by a case study of cadmium in Australia. This thesis shows that this new integration of existing stand-alone methods can provide holistic information and useful indicators covering all significant economic activities, environment, flows, and health risk assessment for selected substances. This enables better decision making on the use and disposal of substances at a range of levels in the economy, from corporations to regions and nations.

Grantor dc:publisher

UNSW, Sydney

Year dc:date

2006

Author dc:creator

• Kwonpongsagoon, Suphaphat

• Environmental health.
• Environmental management.
• Cadmium -- Environmental aspects.

Statement dc:rights

• open access
• CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
• free_to_read

Licence

• https://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_abf2
• https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/au/

Language dc:language

EN

Identifier

https://doi.org/10.26190/unsworks/17359

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:unsworks.library.unsw.edu.au:1959.4/40655