PNNL

Abstract

The Framework for Risk Analysis in Multimedia Environmental Systems (FRAMES) provides the infrastructure to seamlessly link disparate models and databases, providing an assessor with the ability to construct an appropriate conceptual site model from a host of modeling choices, so a myriad number of modeling analyses can be supported and reproduced. FRAMES is a Windows-based system that can incorporate and communicate with a vast array of software models and databases and is uniquely designed to allow users by themselves to visualize the problem and add and link disparate models and databases into the system, even older legacy models. A Quantitative Microbial Risk Assessment (QMRA) is a modeling approach that integrates a wide range of disparate data including fate/transport, exposure, and human health effects relationships to characterize potential health impacts/risks from exposure to pathogenic microorganisms. Although QMRA does not preclude the use of source-term and fate and transport models, it has most commonly been applied to circumstances where the "source term" is represented by the receptor location (i.e., exposure point), so the full extent of a QMRA has not traditionally been rigorously modeled. This paper describes unique attributes of FRAMES and demonstrates how an open-system architecture can be used to link a series of disparate models and databases to support a QMRA application, addressing multiple microbial source types and organisms that impact downstream receptors.