Chemosphere 308 (2022) 136527 Available online 20 September 2022 0045-6535/© 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Using a soft computing OSPRC risk framework to analyze multiple contaminants from multiple sources; a case study from Khoy Plain, NW Iran Ata Allah Nadiri a, b, c, e, * , Fariba Sadeghi Aghdam a , Siamak Razzagh a , Rahim Barzegar d, e , Nasser Jabraili-Andaryan a , Venkatramanan Senapathi f a Department of Earth Sciences, Faculty of Natural Sciences, University of Tabriz, Tabriz, Iran b Institute of Environment, University of Tabriz, Tabriz, Iran c Traditional Medicine and Hydrotherapy Research Center, Ardabil University of Medical Sciences, Ardabil, Iran d Department of Bioresource Engineering, McGill University, 21111 Lakeshore, Ste Anne de Bellevue, Quebec H9X 3V9, Canada e Department of Geography & Environmental Studies, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Canada f Department of Disaster Management, Alagappa University, Karaikudi, 630002, Tamil Nadu, India HIGHLIGHTS G R A P H I C A L ABSTRACT • Four contaminants including As, NO 3  , Pb, and Zn expose to the Khoy aquifer, NW Iran. • ‘Total Information Management’ (TIM) is a framework to aggregate fve dimensions. • Five dimensions are Perceptual and conceptual model, risk cells, soft modelling and OSPRC framework. • OSPRC risk framework utilize to identify the source/origin of groundwater mul- tiple contaminants. • Soft modeling applied to as a set of diverse and classical tools to study contaminants. A R T I C L E INFO Handling editor, Renato Somma Keywords: Multiple contaminants Groundwater risk Soft modeling Khoy plain ABSTRACT Water shortage in arid and semi-arid areas like Iran makes groundwater contamination a crucial issue. In the Khoy aquifer, NW Iran, contaminants (e.g., arsenic (As), nitrate (NO 3  ), lead (Pb), and zinc (Zn)) may originate from both geological and anthropogenic sources. The objectives of the study are to (1) employ soft modeling framework to abstract available hydrogeochemical information into a perceptual model and (2) build a con- ceptual model using the risk cells (RCs) by applying the following two steps: (i) study Origin-Source-Pathways- Receptor-Consequence (OSPRC) as a risk system; and (ii) apply “soft modeling” as a set of diverse and classical tools including graphical representations, geological surveys, and multivariate statistical analysis to validate the information by evaluating their convergence or divergence behaviors among different tools used for investigating the groundwater contaminants. According to the perceptual model, the Khoy aquifer contains four RCs. RC4 (southern of plain) and RC2 (northern of the plain) contain high levels of As, while RC2 contains high amounts of Zn. In RC1 (northern of plain) and RC3 (middle of plain), a high concentration of Pb is detected, while in RC3 and RC4, there is a high concentration of NO 3  . It was found that a soft modeling approach can only identify the * Corresponding author. Department of Earth Sciences, Faculty of Natural Sciences, University of Tabriz, Tabriz, Iran. E-mail addresses: Nadiri.ata@gmail.com (A.A. Nadiri), fariba.sadeghi.aghdam@gmail.com (F.S. Aghdam), siamakrazzagh94@gmail.com (S. Razzagh), rahim. barzegar@mcgill.ca (R. Barzegar), nasserjabraili@gmail.com (N. Jabraili-Andaryan), venkatramanansenapathi@gmail.com (V. Senapathi). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Chemosphere journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/chemosphere https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chemosphere.2022.136527 Received 5 May 2022; Received in revised form 10 August 2022; Accepted 15 September 2022