Combining the cost of reducing uncertainty with the selection of risk assessment models for remediation decision of site contamination

The decision as to whether a contaminated site poses a threat to human health and should be cleaned up relies increasingly upon the use of risk assessment models. However, the more sophisticated risk assessment models become, the greater the concern with the uncertainty in, and thus the credibility of, risk assessment. In particular, when there are several equally plausible models, decision makers are confused by model uncertainty and perplexed as to which model should be chosen for making decisions objectively. When the correctness of different models is not easily judged after objective analysis has been conducted, the cost incurred during the processes of risk assessment has to be considered in order to make an efficient decision. In order to support an efficient and objective remediation decision, this study develops a methodology to cost the least required reduction of uncertainty and to use the cost measure in the selection of candidate models. The focus is on identifying the efforts involved in reducing the input uncertainty to the point at which the uncertainty would not hinder the decision in each equally plausible model. First, this methodology combines a nested Monte Carlo simulation, rank correlation coefficients, and explicit decision criteria to identify key uncertain inputs that would influence the decision in order to reduce input uncertainty. This methodology then calculates the cost of required reduction of input uncertainty in each model by convergence ratio, which measures the needed convergence level of each key input's spread. Finally, the most appropriate model can be selected based on the convergence ratio and cost. A case of a contaminated site is used to demonstrate the methodology.