Human Health Risk Assessment Posed by PCB Exposure in Bucharest Area

Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) are a huge group of chemicals that have been linked to various adverse health effects in humans, independent on where they live. Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) belong to the group of Persistent Organic Pollutants, being one of the most widespread environmental pollutants. Even exposure to low levels of PCBs conducts to various acute and chronic health effects.Substances like PCBs, which are accumulated at hazardous levels in living organisms, pose environmental and human-health risks. Our objective in this paper is to evaluate the risk for human health using GIUDITTA software. The model was applied to a case-study of 7polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB 28, PCB52, PCB 101, PCB 118, PCB 138, PCB 153, PCB 180) measured in an urban soil located in Bucharest.GIUDITTA is a Windows based software program, developed in Italy by Dames & Moore commissioned by and in cooperation with Milan Province and calculates the risk according to ASTM standard E2081-00 (Standard Guide for Risk-Based Corrective Action).The results of the risk assessment from this case-study could be a useful tool for urban planning and development.