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Scientific papers and reports

BETR Global has been developed using the BETR contaminant fate modeling framework that was originally described in 2001 parameterized for the North American environment:

MacLeod, M., D. G. Woodfine, D. Mackay, T. McKone, D. Bennett and R. Maddalena (2001). "BETR North America: A regionally segmented multimedia contaminant fate model for North America." Environmental Science and Pollution Research 8(3): 156-163. Link.

Version 1.0 of BETR Global was applied to evaluate the global fate and transport of polychlorinated biphenyls and the contribution of global sources of persistent organic pollutants to atmospheric deposition in the North American Great Lakes:

MacLeod, M., W. J. Riley and T. E. McKone (2005). "Assessing the influence of climate variability on atmospheric concentrations of polychlorinated biphenyls using a global-scale mass balance model (BETR Global)." Environmental Science & Technology 39(17): 6749-6756. Link.

MacLeod, M., W. J. Riley and T. E. McKone (2005). Modeling transport and deposition of Level 1 substances to the Great Lakes. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Report #LBNL-56801. Submitted to United States Environmental Protection Agency Great Lakes National Program Office, Chicago, Ill.: 127 pages. Link.

A version of BETR Global that includes speciation of acids was developed to study the global mass balance and transport of perfluorinated acids:

Armitage, J.M., MacLeod, M. and I.T. Cousins (2009). "Modeling the global fate of perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctanoate (PFO) emitted from direct sources using a multispecies mass balance model." Environmental Science & Technology 43(4): 1134-1140. Link. Addition/Correction 43(15): 5830-5836. Link.

Armitage, J.M., MacLeod, M. and I.T. Cousins (2009). "Comparative assessment of the global fate and transport pathways of long-chain perfluorocarboxylic acids (PFCAs) and perflurocarboxylates (PFCs) emitted from direct sources." Environmental Science & Technology 43(16) 6438-6439. Link.

BETR Global was applied to evaluate the influence of a climate change scenario on the global distribution of persistent organic pollutants:

Lamon, L., von Waldow, H., MacLeod, M., Scheringer, M., Marcomini, A. and K. Hunberbühler (2009). "Modeling the global levels and distribution of polychlorinated biphenyls in air under a climate change scenario." Environmental Science & Technology 43(15) 5818-5824. Link.

BETR Global 2.0 and BETR-Research are described and demonstrated in this article in Environmental Pollution:

MacLeod, M., von Waldow, H., Tay, P., Armitage, J.M., Wöhrnschimmel, H., Riley, W.J., McKone, T.E. and K. Hunberbühler (2011). "BETR Global - A geographically explicit global-scale multimedia contaminant fate model." Environmental Pollution (In press). Link.

BETR Global was one of the models applied to study interactions between climate change and exposure to persistent pollutants in Europe and the Arctic in the EU FP7-funded ArcRisk Project.

Wöhrnschimmel, H., Tay, P., von Waldow, H., Hung, H., Li, Y.F., MacLeod, M. and K. Hungerbühler (2012). "Comparative assessment of the global fate of α-and β-hexachlorocyclohexane before and after phase-out." Environmental Science & Technology 46(4) 2047-2054. Link.

Wöhrnschimmel, H., MacLeod, M. and K. Hungerbühler (2012). "Global multimedia source-receptor relationships for persistent organic pollutants during use and after phase-out." Atmospheric Pollution Research 3 392-398. Link.

Wöhrnschimmel, H., MacLeod, M. and K. Hungerbühler (2013). "Emissions, fate and transport of persistent organic pollutants to the Arctic in a changing global climate." Environmental Science & Technology 47 (5) 2323–2330. Link.

BETR Global was used to illustrate case-studies of global transport of persistent organic pollutants in the WEOG region and global reports on the Global Monitoring Plan being carried out under Article 16 (Effectiveness Evaluation) of the Stockholm Convention.

Harner, T., Hung, H., Katsoyiannis, A., Larsson, K., Hedlund, B., Muir, D., Guardans, R., MacLeod, M., Broomhall, S., Mendes, R, and T. Johannessen (2015). "Second Regional Monitoring Report for Western Europe and Others Group (WEOG) Region" Report submitted under the Global Monitoring Plan for Persistent Organic Pollutants under Article 16 of the Stockholm Convention. Link.

Secretariat of the Stockholm Convention (2017). "Second Global Monitoring Report under the Global Monitoring Plan for Persistent Organic Pollutants" Report submitted under the Stockholm Convention Article 16 on Effectiveness Evaluation. Link.

A "high spatial resolution" version of BETR Research was used to model the remoteness of the global multimedia environment from sources of persistent organic pollutants, and to model human exposure to PCB 153 at the global scale:

Göktaş, R.K. and M. MacLeod (2016). "Remoteness from sources of persistent organic pollutants in the multi-media global environment" Environmental Pollution. 217 33-41. Link.

McLachlan, M.S., Undeman, E., Zhao, F. and M. MacLeod (2018). "Predicting global scale exposure of humans to PCB 153 from historical emissions" Environmental Science: Processes & Impacts 20, 747-756. Link.

Li Li and co-workers from Peking University and the University of Toronto at Scarborough has applied BETR Global 2.0 in several studies including:

Li, L., Liu, J. and J. Hu (2015). "Global inventory, long-range transport and environmental distribution of dicofol" Environmental Science & Technology 49(1) 212-222. Link.

Li, L. and F. Wania (2018). "Elucidating the variability in the hexabromocyclododecane diasterieomer profile in the global environment" Environmental Science & Technology 52(18) 10532-10542. Link.

Chen, C., Li, L., Liu, J. and J. Liu. (2019). "Global environmental fate of short-chain chlorinated praffins: Modeling with a single vs. multiple sets of physicochemical properties" Science of the Total Environment 666, 423-430. Link.

Model inter-comparison studies

BETR Global is one of the models participating in the model inter-comparison studies being carried out by the Task Force on Hemispheric Transport of Air Pollution under the Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution (CLRTAP). Results of the modeling studies can be found in Part C of the HTAP 2010 Assessment Report.

Gusev, A., MacLeod, M. and P. Bartlett. "Intercontinental transport of persistent organic pollutants: A review of key findings and recommendations of the task force on hemispheric transport of air pollutants and directions for future research." Atmospheric Pollution Research 3 463-465. Link.

Funding and support

The development of BETR Global has been supported by research grants from several agencies including:

The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (Canada).

The US Environmental Protection Agency, Region 5 (United States of America).

The Swiss Federal Office for the Environment, Air Quality Division (Switzerland).

ArcRisk 7th Framework Progamme Project (European Community).

iCUPE (Integrative and Comprehensive Understanding of Polar Environments) (European Union Horizon 2020 Grant Agreement No 689443)

LRI-ECO48 (CEFIC LRI Programme)

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