Environmental Fate Models, with Emphasis on Those Applicable to Air

This chapter describes the use of empirical (microcosm and mesocosms) and numerical/computer modeling approaches to predict the dispersion and fate of a chemical in the environment. We touch on models used for different media (i.e., water, root/soil zone) and go in depth to modeling in the atmosphere, including different available models and the need for emission rate estimation to enable modeling. Another important component to modeling is having an internally consistent set of physicochemical properties to feed into various models. EPI Suite^TM is the best source for obtaining internally consistent properties. Of course, EPI Suite^TM provides the best estimates of physicochemical properties and should be augmented with experimental values physicochemical properties of the chemical in question. We address different methods to estimate important properties of chemicals including use of software like EPI Suite^TM, literature, and experimental generation methods.