A model to derive soil criteria for benzene migrating from soil to dwelling interior in homes with crawl spaces

The establishment of Australian soil criteria for volatile hydrocarbons such as benzene has been limited due to the lack of a suitable transport model to predict human exposures. In a confined environment representing worst case exposure, the inhalation of volatile hydrocarbons from sub-surface regions may be used to establish health-based soil criteria. A volatilisation model is presented for the case of a crawl space home which is a common housing design in Australia. The model is used to estimate a cumulative indoor human dose (CIHD) based on one-dimensional movement from a finite subsurface source through soil to the dwelling interior. A non-homogeneous surface boundary condition is represented where the volatile is not immediately swept away from the air/soil boundary. Time-dependent differential equations established to represent transport are solved using Laplace transforms. Australian experimental field data are used in considering mixing, dilution, ventilation and sink effects and first-order soil and air degradation of the volatile incorporated. A CIHD from the model is compared to various benzene exposure standards to determine a criterion for benzene in soil. Sensitivity analysis has revealed that the dominant influencing parameters are those relating to dwelling characteristics and not soil properties or the physico-chemical properties of the volatile. Each of the group-input parameters has been found to act virtually independently in the model presenting the potential for model refinement and establishment of a generic soil criterion for benzene.