Guidelines for planning interventions against external exposure in industrial area after a nuclear accident. Pt. 1 A holistic approach of countermeasure application

Following a large-scale release of radioactivity into the environment, different urban, industrial and rural environments may be contaminated for many years. Currently, there is limited systematic consideration of long-term management to ensure sustainability of areas contaminated by long-lived radionuclides. To sustain acceptable living and working conditions in such areas it is important to be able to construct robust, effective restoration strategies which address the many different types of environment, land use and ways of life. The overall objective of the STRATEGY project (directly addressing Key Action 2: Nuclear Fission - Off-site emergency management in the Fifth Framework Programme) is to establish a decision framework to enable the selection of robust and practicable remediation strategies for Member States, which enable the long-term sustainable management of contaminated areas. The special objectives of the work carried out by GSF - Radiation Protection Institute and presented in this report was to contribute to the different urban/industrial parts of the STRATEGY project. Countermeasures being different from the usual urban ones and largely applicable in industrial area are collected and evaluated. The industrial area is defined here as such an area where productive and/or commercial activity is carried out. A good example is a supermarket or a factory. In designing restoration strategies to ensure the long-term sustainability of large and varied contaminated areas, there is a requirement to adopt a more holistic approach rather than simply selecting cost-effective countermeasures. The potentially negative consequences of restoration must be fully considered. The implementation of a remediation strategy may lead to a reduced collective dose, but increased dose to those implementing the strategies. Countermeasures may themselves generate waste and the practical consideration of disposal options has to be addressed. There is also a requirement that the radiological situation is fully explained and any remediation measures employed are transparent to affected populations. These issues are covered by the generation of a database, the so called countermeasure templates. (orig.) / Available from TIB Hannover: RO 2674(2003,01) / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische Informationsbibliothek / SIGLE / DE / Germany