AMBER

In collaboration with Enviros Consulting Limited, Quintessa develops and supports the AMBER compartment modelling tool.

AMBER is a flexible graphical-user interface based software tool that allows users to build their own dynamic compartmental models to represent the migration, degradation and fate of contaminants in environmental systems. AMBER allows the user to assess routine, accidental and long-term contaminant release.

Key Features

• It has a powerful, user-friendly graphical interface and also allows text-based editing and reviewing of case files;
• It incorporates fast and accurate Laplace-transform and numerical time-stepping solvers;
• It allows complex time-varying source terms, environmental properties and transfer processes, which may be linear or non-linear;
• It allows the import/export of data with external files to facilitate its integrated use with other software tools;
• It allows the copying and pasting of parameters and structures between models;
• It has in-built parameter checking and 'units awareness' that minimise the chance of inconsistencies within a model;

• It has full probabilistic capabilities, allowing full or partial Monte Carlo or Latin Hypercube sampling and includes a wide range of available probability density functions;
• It allows any number of contaminants, compartments and transfers to be represented;
• It includes full support for contaminant degradation, decay and in-growth;
• It allows the user to define complex algorithms and data sets to describe the system being modelled, the transfers and the endpoints of interest;
• It has built-in graphing as well as Excel export capabilities;
• It is provided with tutorials and technical supporting documentation;
• It has an active user group with regular workshops; and
• It is under continued active development, we are always interested to hear suggestions concerning potential developments that we can include to make the software even better.

Application

AMBER is used by over 84 organisations in 32 countries and is applied to a wide range of contaminant modelling situations including:

• 'total-system' safety assessment of near-surface and deep geological radioactive waste disposal facilities;
• biosphere assessment for deep geological radioactive waste disposal facilities;
• assessment of routine and accidental releases for radionuclides into the atmosphere and their subsequent behaviour in agricultural food-chains;
• assessment of radionuclide releases to both freshwater and marine aquatic environments;
• assessment of contaminant behaviour following leakage into ventilation systems;
• assessment of the environmental fate of organic pesticides applied to farmed land; and
• can be applied to modelling contaminant transport in saturated and unsaturated conditions via diffusive and advective processes in porous and fractured systems.

A free demonstration version for AMBER 5.1 is available to download from the Quintessa-online website, please click the Demo button:

For further information please contact Russell Walke at Quintessa or amber@enviros.com. Alternatively you can visit the Enviros AMBER web site.