Human health risk assessment of naturally occurring radioactive materials in produced water - A case study

Shakhawat Chowdhury; Tahir Husain; Brian Veitch; Neil Bose; Rehan Sadiq

doi:10.1080/10807030490887203

Human health risk assessment of naturally occurring radioactive materials in produced water - A case study

Shakhawat Chowdhury, Tahir Husain^*, Brian Veitch, Neil Bose, Rehan Sadiq

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

17 Scopus citations

Abstract

Human health effects from naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORM) in produced water are of concern due to their bioavailability and bioaccumulation characteristics in finfish and shellfish species used for human consumption. Being chemically similar to calcium, radium concentrates mostly in bones, shells, and exoskeletons. Previous studies have been based on the whole-body bioaccumulation of radium in fish where the distribution of radium in bone/exoskeleton and the edible parts of fish were not considered separately and thus the predicted risks were relatively high. In this article, the distribution of radium in the non-edible and edible parts of fish and the probability of exposure to a produced water plume have been studied in order to characterize human health risks. A probabilistic hydrodynamic model has been incorporated in this study. Using the concentration distribution approach, the mean cancer risks to humans were predicted in the range of 8.6 × 10 ^-7 to 9.5 × 10^-7, which were 2.6 to 2.7 times less than the risks predicted by using the whole body concentrations. The exceedence probability of maximum permissible human health cancer risk of 1 × 10 ^-4 is close to zero. At a risk level of 1 × 10^-6, the exceedence probability is 21% whereas in the whole body concentration approach it is between 45 to 49%. In this study, no effect on fish from exposure to NORM components in produced water was found.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	1155-1171
Number of pages	17
Journal	Human and Ecological Risk Assessment (HERA)
Volume	10
Issue number	6
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1080/10807030490887203
State	Published - Dec 2004
Externally published	Yes

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
The authors acknowledge the financial support of the NSERC Strategic Project entitled Offshore Environmental Engineering Using Autonomous Underwater Vehicles.

Keywords

Dilution model
Fish tissues
Human health risk
Monte Carlo simulations
NORM
Produced water

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Ecological Modeling
Pollution
Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Access to Document

10.1080/10807030490887203

Cite this

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title = "Human health risk assessment of naturally occurring radioactive materials in produced water - A case study",

abstract = "Human health effects from naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORM) in produced water are of concern due to their bioavailability and bioaccumulation characteristics in finfish and shellfish species used for human consumption. Being chemically similar to calcium, radium concentrates mostly in bones, shells, and exoskeletons. Previous studies have been based on the whole-body bioaccumulation of radium in fish where the distribution of radium in bone/exoskeleton and the edible parts of fish were not considered separately and thus the predicted risks were relatively high. In this article, the distribution of radium in the non-edible and edible parts of fish and the probability of exposure to a produced water plume have been studied in order to characterize human health risks. A probabilistic hydrodynamic model has been incorporated in this study. Using the concentration distribution approach, the mean cancer risks to humans were predicted in the range of 8.6 × 10 -7 to 9.5 × 10-7, which were 2.6 to 2.7 times less than the risks predicted by using the whole body concentrations. The exceedence probability of maximum permissible human health cancer risk of 1 × 10 -4 is close to zero. At a risk level of 1 × 10-6, the exceedence probability is 21% whereas in the whole body concentration approach it is between 45 to 49%. In this study, no effect on fish from exposure to NORM components in produced water was found.",

keywords = "Dilution model, Fish tissues, Human health risk, Monte Carlo simulations, NORM, Produced water",

author = "Shakhawat Chowdhury and Tahir Husain and Brian Veitch and Neil Bose and Rehan Sadiq",

note = "Funding Information: The authors acknowledge the financial support of the NSERC Strategic Project entitled Offshore Environmental Engineering Using Autonomous Underwater Vehicles.",

year = "2004",

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doi = "10.1080/10807030490887203",

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T1 - Human health risk assessment of naturally occurring radioactive materials in produced water - A case study

AU - Chowdhury, Shakhawat

AU - Husain, Tahir

AU - Veitch, Brian

AU - Bose, Neil

AU - Sadiq, Rehan

N1 - Funding Information: The authors acknowledge the financial support of the NSERC Strategic Project entitled Offshore Environmental Engineering Using Autonomous Underwater Vehicles.

PY - 2004/12

Y1 - 2004/12

N2 - Human health effects from naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORM) in produced water are of concern due to their bioavailability and bioaccumulation characteristics in finfish and shellfish species used for human consumption. Being chemically similar to calcium, radium concentrates mostly in bones, shells, and exoskeletons. Previous studies have been based on the whole-body bioaccumulation of radium in fish where the distribution of radium in bone/exoskeleton and the edible parts of fish were not considered separately and thus the predicted risks were relatively high. In this article, the distribution of radium in the non-edible and edible parts of fish and the probability of exposure to a produced water plume have been studied in order to characterize human health risks. A probabilistic hydrodynamic model has been incorporated in this study. Using the concentration distribution approach, the mean cancer risks to humans were predicted in the range of 8.6 × 10 -7 to 9.5 × 10-7, which were 2.6 to 2.7 times less than the risks predicted by using the whole body concentrations. The exceedence probability of maximum permissible human health cancer risk of 1 × 10 -4 is close to zero. At a risk level of 1 × 10-6, the exceedence probability is 21% whereas in the whole body concentration approach it is between 45 to 49%. In this study, no effect on fish from exposure to NORM components in produced water was found.

AB - Human health effects from naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORM) in produced water are of concern due to their bioavailability and bioaccumulation characteristics in finfish and shellfish species used for human consumption. Being chemically similar to calcium, radium concentrates mostly in bones, shells, and exoskeletons. Previous studies have been based on the whole-body bioaccumulation of radium in fish where the distribution of radium in bone/exoskeleton and the edible parts of fish were not considered separately and thus the predicted risks were relatively high. In this article, the distribution of radium in the non-edible and edible parts of fish and the probability of exposure to a produced water plume have been studied in order to characterize human health risks. A probabilistic hydrodynamic model has been incorporated in this study. Using the concentration distribution approach, the mean cancer risks to humans were predicted in the range of 8.6 × 10 -7 to 9.5 × 10-7, which were 2.6 to 2.7 times less than the risks predicted by using the whole body concentrations. The exceedence probability of maximum permissible human health cancer risk of 1 × 10 -4 is close to zero. At a risk level of 1 × 10-6, the exceedence probability is 21% whereas in the whole body concentration approach it is between 45 to 49%. In this study, no effect on fish from exposure to NORM components in produced water was found.

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Human health risk assessment of naturally occurring radioactive materials in produced water - A case study

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

UN SDGs

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