A new coherence test procedure of environmental quality objectives based on multi-media monitoring data and its application to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in Korea

The goal of the present study was to determine if coherence was maintained among the maximum permissible concentrations (MPCs) of 15 PAHs in air, soil, water, and sediment proposed in Korea. Coherence was tested for each of the five medium pairs (soil/air, water/air, water/soil, sediment/soil, and water/sediment) using concurrently measured data of PAHs levels in those media. The coherence test was possible in the present study under the condition that the PAHs emission occurs only in air. The sources of uncertainty for assessing coherence using the monitoring data included the strength of evidence to support the assumption of near-steady state or steady state, the choice of the confidence interval, and the monitoring data set used for the test. While subject to the uncertainties, a number of the proposed MPCs of PAHs were determined not to be coherent. This work is the first one presenting a coherence test procedure based on multimedia monitoring data and the test results of coherence among the MPCs of PAHs. The results suggest that future development of methodology is warranted to ensure the coherence among the environmental quality objectives while fulfilling the desired level of protection. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.