Modelling the volatilization of organic soil contaminants: Extension of the Jury, Spencer and Farmer Behaviour Assessment Model and solution Original Research Article

In the analysis of the volatilization of organic soil contamination, the Behaviour Assessment Model (BAM) of Jury, Spencer, and Farmer [1] has proved to be a valuable exploratory tool, because it has an analytic solution which is easily and quickly evaluated. However, because the surface boundary condition in the BAM is homogeneous, its applicability is limited to situations where the above ground concentration of the volatilant is zero above a boundary layer. The important situations of the accumulation of the volatilant below buildings, in vegetation or below material stored on the ground are thereby excluded from consideration. This paper derives an analytic solution for the nonhomogeneous surface boundary condition extension of the BAM which allows its exploratory potential to be extended to the more realistic scenarios mentioned above. This analytic solution contains the BAM solution as a special case.