Uncertainty modelling of atmospheric dispersion by stochastic response surface method under aleatory and epistemic uncertainties

Abstract

The parameters associated to a environmental dispersion model may include different kinds of variability, imprecision and uncertainty. More often, it is seen that available information is interpreted in probabilistic sense. Probability theory is a well-established theory to measure such kind of variability. However, not all available information, data or model parameters affected by variability, imprecision and uncertainty, can be handled by traditional probability theory. Uncertainty or imprecision may occur due to incomplete information or data, measurement error or data obtained from expert judgement or subjective interpretation of available data or information. Thus for model parameters, data may be affected by subjective uncertainty. Traditional probability theory is inappropriate to represent subjective uncertainty. Possibility theory is used as a tool to describe parameters with insufficient knowledge. Based on the polynomial chaos expansion, stochastic response surface method has been utilized in this article for the uncertainty propagation of atmospheric dispersion model under consideration of both probabilistic and possibility information. The proposed method has been demonstrated through a hypothetical case study of atmospheric dispersion.