A possible sanitary risk analysis approach for contaminated sites: fundamentals, computer worksheet implementation, preliminary application

Within the increasing (legislative and applicative) attention to absolute risk analysis for contaminated sites at Italian level, as a University research study and exercise, the definable ‘ARA-CoSSSLs’ absolute risk analysis approach for human health protection (‘Absolute Risk Analysis for Contaminated Sites’, on ‘Soil Screening Levels’ basis) has been derived and directly implemented on a series of interactive computer worksheets. The basic conditions of the ‘ARA-CoSSSLs’ approach derivation are: the predominant, relevant reference to a fundamental international scientific protocol, also considering its temporal evolution (the US EPA ‘SSLs’ procedure); a modular, open and easily extensible computer calculation structure (which is expressly arranged with correlated ‘Modules’, eventually theoretical ‘Sub-modules’ and finally different, individual ‘Worksheets’). This paper deals with the fundamentals, the characteristic aspects and the specific calculation structure and implementation of the ‘ARACoSSSLs’ approach. Additionally, a first, preliminary Italian case study application of the ‘ARA-CoSSSLs’ approach is synthetically presented.