Addressing the Uncertainties in the Environmental Analysis, Modeling, Source and Risk Assessment of Emerging Contaminants

Emerging contaminants (ECs) have become a growing source of worry for environmental researchers and stakeholders in recent decades. Compared with conventional pollutants, ECs can pose environmental risks even at a trace level. The analysis of ECs is typically significantly more challenging than that of conventional pollutants because of their trace amounts and diverse chemical structures. For sound environmental management, it is necessary to perform a comprehensive study of these pollutants. Global concern has increasingly grown over the occurrence, fate, environmental modeling, and risk assessment of such contaminants. Due to the dearth of knowledge in this area, various uncertainties inevitably exist in the investigation of ECs. Environmental problems cannot be precisely understood due to the ubiquitous uncertainties in environmental research. Uncertainties and their sources have been reviewed in this study, including spatial and temporal variability, uncertainty in sample collection and analysis, uncertainty in environmental modeling, uncertainty in risk assessment, and uncertainty in source characterization. Some suggestions to reduce uncertainties are summarized. An awareness of uncertainty is necessary for us to have a more accurate understanding and contribute to sound environmental decision-making and management. In addition, more work remains to be performed to reveal the uncertainties in the analysis and risk assessment of ECs.