Risk management for nitrate-contaminated ground-water supplies. Final report

To reduce nitrate risk from groundwater supplies, several strategies were developed based on an acceptable level of human health risk, the reasonableness of nitrate control cost, and the technical feasibility of nitrate control methods. While high cost strategies may provide a high degree of human health risk protection, low cost ones may not provide adequate protection. Therefore, the objectives of risk reduction and cost are in conflict with each other. The ultimate goal of the nitrate risk management is to determine, under a great deal of uncertainty, which strategy 'best' satisfies the human health risk reduction and nitrate control cost criteria. The methodology addresses specific, yet common, cases of groundwater contamination in the midwestern U.S.. New systems analysis tools, a combined probabilistic and fuzzy set approach is used to address uncertainties common to risk management. In addition to addressing different strategies for nitrate control, different nitrate inputs (point and non-point sources) also were considered in the development of this methodology.