Vapour Intrusion

Posted on by Melinda Evans

# CHLORINATED HYDROCARBONS
# PETROLEUM HYDROCARBONS
# VAPOUR

Issue Date: September 2022

Guidance Notes for Assessment in Contaminated Land Scenarios in the UK

Following the recommendations of the SoBRA Summer 2017 workshop and the publication of the SoBRA Groundwater Vapour Generic Assessment Criteria (GACgwvap), SoBRA has now published a series of accessible and concise practitioners’ guides to support informed decision making with respect to vapour intrusion (VI) risk assessment within the UK. It is acknowledged that there is already an extensive portfolio of existing industry guidance available both within the UK and internationally in relation to VI risk assessment, nevertheless, these practitioners’ guides aim to provide high level summaries of the existing guidance, covering key aspects of VI risk assessment and include signposting to the relevant published industry documents for more detailed information, where required.

The topics covered by the SoBRA practitioners’ guides published comprise:

1A. Conceptual site model development for assessment of VI contaminant linkages in the UK

1B. Benefits of soil vapour sampling for assessment of VI risks

1C. VI data collection considerations

Practical Tips Document 2018 (updated August 2024)

Posted on by so-admi

# PRACTICAL TIPS

Issue Date: June 2018

In June 2018, the Society of Brownfield Risk Assessment (SoBRA), the Geological Society Contaminated Land Group and RemSoc delivered a conference targeted towards early careers learning.  Its aims were:

  • To support technical excellence in the assessment, estimation & evaluation of risks and associated uncertainties from land affected by contaminants;
  • To encourage “good practice” in the practical application of risk assessment to support decisions regarding the appropriate management of land contamination; and
  • To facilitate and widen access to the dissemination of knowledge regarding land contamination risk assessment.

A commitment of this workshop has been the creation of a series of short tabular reports for each of the different discipline areas.  We have produced four practical tips documents which include human health risk assessment, controlled waters risk assessment, soil vapour intrusion and improving risk assessment – field to desk. The human health, controlled waters and field to desk documents have been updated in August 2024 (v2) to reflect current legislation and guidance. The vapour intrusion document is considered to be largely superseded by the SoBRA guidance notes 1A Conceptual site model development for assessment of VI contaminant linkages in the UK, 1B Benefits of soil vapour sampling for assessment of VI risks, and 1C VI data collection considerations.

Download Human Health Tips report v2

Download Controlled Waters Tips report v2

Download Soil Vapour Intrusion report v2

Download Improving Risk Assessment – Field to Desk Tips report v2

Vapour Intrusion to Support Sustainable Risk Based Decision Making Workshop Report (SoBRA 2017)

Posted on by so-admi

# VAPOUR
# SUMMER WORKSHOP REPORTS

Issue Date: 6th March 2018

SoBRA held a workshop on vapour Intrusion to Support Sustainable Risk Based Decision Making June 2017. The workshops aims were to: provide high quality speakers who could outline the challenges faced for their topic area that affect the evaluation of the vapour intrusion pathway, including CSM, site investigation, modelling and installation of mitigation measures; and to break out into workshop groups to discuss issues pertaining to a topic area in more detail and identify how such issues might be resolved. The four topic areas were CSM, site investigation, development of alternative risk assessment techniques based on scientific studies and the evaluation of mitigation measures using quantitative risk assessment.

Download report