Translating environmental xenobiotic fate models across scales

Abstract

The classical models developed for degradation and transport of xenobiotics have been derived with the assumption of homogeneous environments. Unfortunately, deterministic models function well in the laboratory under homogeneous conditions but such homogeneous conditions often do not prevail in the field. A possible solution is the incorporation of the statistical variation of soil parameters into deterministic process models. This demands the development of stochastic models of spatial variability. To this end, spatial soil parameter fields are conceived as the realisation of a random spatial process. Extrapolation of local fine scale models to large heterogeneous fields is achieved by coupling deterministic process models with random spatial field models.