Figure 3 Schematics of potential impact pathways.
Pathway group 2 comprises all impact pathways along geological faults.
Potential water-related impact pathways are shown schematically in Figure 3, considering both technical and geological impact pathways.
Summation and combination effects of the aforementioned impact pathways must be taken into account appropriately.
Conceptual hydrogeological models should be prepared that support reliable risk assessment for all potential impact pathways.
On the other hand, out of the pathways enriched, the first five biggest impact pathways belong to amino acid metabolism.
Such criteria should cover both the hazard potential of fracking additives and the availability of reliable information about the geological and technical impact pathways involved.
The foundation of a sound risk analysis is a description of the current system, the relevant impact pathways and their interactions.
Without suitable numerical quantification, however, the relevance of geological impact pathways can be estimated only with great uncertainties, for example using worst-case approaches.
Technical impact pathways could be quantified by probabilities of occurrence or probabilities of failure if data suitable for the German geological, technical and legal conditions were available.
identifying hydrogeological problematic areas, and possible impact pathways, at an early stage, and proposing measures for ongoing monitoring, reducing the hazard potential of the fracking fluid potentially used.
