%0 Journal Article
%A Thomas E McKone
%A Matthew Macleod
%B Annual Review of  Environment and Resources
%D 2003
%G eng
%P 11
%T Tracking Multiple Pathways of Human Exposure to Persistent Multimedia Pollutants: Regional, Continental, and Global Scale Models
%V 28
%1 <p>7.2</p>
%X <p>Widespread observations of organic compounds in vegetation, soil, animals, and human tissue have  motivated research on more accurate characterizations of chemical transport over regional, continental, and  global scales. Efforts to assess human and ecosystem exposure to contaminants from multiple  environmental media have been evolving over the last several decades. In this review we summarize the  development and evolution of the multimedia mass-balance approach to pollutant fate and exposure  evaluation and illustrate some of the calculations used in multimedia assessments. We describe the  concepts that make possible the Mackay-type mass-balance compartment models. We describe ongoing  efforts to use multimedia models to quantify human exposures. We use a series of case studies of varying  complexity to illustrate capabilities and limitations of selected multimedia approaches. We look to the  future and consider current challenges and opportunities in the field of multimedia contaminant fate and  exposure modeling.</p>