Supporting public acceptance regarding the presence of radioactivity in projects involving natural ressources via the development of new radioanalytical tools

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Natural resources directly and indirectly accounted for a significant portion of Canada's gross domesticproduct and accounted for millions of jobs in Canada. Yet, the sustainable growth of this economic sector isconditional to social acceptability. Been ubiquitous to our world, natural radioactivity is amongst theparameters that create apprehension amongst the population even if the radioactive emmitters are alreadypresent in the environment before any anthropogenic activities occur. To tend towards the sustainabledevelopment of our natural resources for all three pillars (economic, environmental, and social), accurate,publicly available and reliable data on the presence and behavior of radioactivity are therefore necessary. Asenvironmental and health effects of an exposure to radioactivity are of concerns for the public, monitoring ofthe presence radioactivity prior, during and after the exploitation of natural resources is amongst the strongestargument to demonstrate the limited impacts to surrounding communities. Sadly, due to radioanalyticallimitations, a systematic monitoring of this parameters is not systematically performed. This is caused by thelimited number of laboratories performing such analyses due to cost and trained qualified personnel issueswhich need to be overcome. The partnership between the academia and the governmental organisations aimstowards addressing these issues.We are proposing to develop new tools to accelerate and improve the quantification of Ra and Po atenvironmental levels by adapting analytical methodologies recently developed by members of the scientificteam to the partner's needs. As the partners will be actively involved in the development and validation of theexpected deliverables for this project, they will rapidly implement these methods in their own laboratories.These concrete actions are directly targeting the need for a better understanding of the presence of radioactivityin our life and thus, providing a key element towards a sustained development of the natural resources sector.