Radiation protection of the environment: providing knowledge and skills to the user community

保护环境免受电离辐射的问题只是在过去十年中在英国和国际上才得到积极解决。在国际上，人们越来越认识到国际辐射防护委员会（ICRP）现有声明的不足：因此，委员会认为，如果人类得到充分保护，那么其他生物也可能得到充分保护。联合王国是最早从对环境的潜在放射性影响的角度管制放射性释放的国家之一。联合王国的主要驱动力是保护立法，涉及联合王国执行《欧共体鸟类和鸟类指令》，因此需要证明植物和动物受到放射性物质的保护。在英国（和许多其他国家），由于可能建设核电站和废物储存库，对放射性环境评估的需求正在增加。在英国，目前大约有12个地点被认为是新核反应堆的潜在地点。在世界范围内，随着越来越多的国家调整其立法以反映不断发展的国际建议和标准，对放射性环境评估的需求将继续增加。因此，需要有足够的合格人员（包括监管人员和工业界）进行放射性环境评估并了解评估结果。已经制定了评估野生动物暴露于电离辐射的风险的方法。其中包括埃里卡工具，这是一个由欧盟资助的财团的成果，现在建议在英国和欧洲使用。这类工具还处于相对早期的开发阶段，因此具有局限性。随着滥用默认模型参数的情况不断发生，用户需要理解这些局限性以及模型及其参数背后的合理/科学理由。该提案描述了一个工作方案，该方案将建立辐射环境影响评估培训包（单元课程和网上教程），重点是埃里卡工具。培训的对象是那些需要在开展和理解评估方面接受过培训的工作人员的组织。这包括监管机构、行业以及为行业或监管机构进行评估的研究人员/顾问。由于评估的要求由监管机构确定，因此向监管机构和行业提供相同的培训有明显的好处。该工作方案还将在最终用户-研究人员-工具开发人员之间建立对话，以突出未来的要求，并确保进一步的开发满足用户的需要。这将通过维基讨论论坛、课程参与者的反馈以及与包括监管机构和行业在内的咨询小组的互动来实现。该培训课程将使联合王国有关机构熟悉环境评估所依据的数据库。其中包括一个描述放射性核素从环境介质转移到不同生物体类型的参数数据库。该项目将促进在联合王国获得的数据以有质量控制的方式输入该数据库。这将提供机会，以成本效益高的方式分析来自英国网站的数据，最终目标是制作基于英国的表格。英国和其他国家的监管机构和工业界，以及欧洲共同体和联合国国际原子能机构都对该项目给予了大力支持。

Protection of the environment from ionising radiation has only been actively addressed in the UK and internationally over the last decade. Internationally, there had been an increasing recognition of the inadequacy of the existing statement of the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP): The Commission therefore believes that if man is adequately protected then other living things are also likely to be sufficiently protected. The UK has been one of the first countries to regulate radioactive releases from the perspective of potential radiological impact on the environment. The key driver in the UK has been conservation legislation with respect to UK implementation of the EC Birds and Habitats Directives and the consequent need to demonstrate that plants and animals are protected from radioactive substances. The need for radiological environmental assessments in the UK (and many other countries) is increasing as a consequence of potential building of nuclear power plants and waste repositories. In the UK approximately 12 sites are currently being considered as potential locations of new nuclear reactors. Worldwide, the need for radiological environmental assessments will continue to increase as more countries adapt their legislation to reflect developing international recommendations and standards. There is, therefore, a requirement to have sufficient suitably qualified people (including regulators and industry) who can conduct and understand the results of radiological environmental assessments. Approaches have been developed to assess the risk to wildlife of exposure to ionising radiation. These include the ERICA Tool, an output of an EC funded consortium, which is now recommended for use in the UK and Europe. Such tools are in comparatively early stages of development and consequently have limitations. These limitations and the rational/scientific justification behind the models and their parameters need to be understood by users as instances of misuse of default model parameters are occurring. This proposal describes a work programme which will establish training packages (modular courses and web-based tutorials) in radiological environmental impact assessment with a focus on the ERICA Tool. The training is aimed at those organisations that need staff trained in conducting and understanding assessments. This includes regulatory organisations, industry and also researchers/consultants who conduct assessments for either industry or regulators. As the requirements of an assessment are defined by the regulator, there are clear advantages in making the same training available to both regulators and industry. The work programme will also establish a dialogue between the end user-researcher-tool developer communities to highlight future requirements and ensure that further developments meet user needs. This will be achieved by Wiki discussion fora, feedback from course participants and interaction with an advisory group which includes regulators and industry. The training course will familiarise relevant UK bodies with the databases underpining environmental assessment. These include a database of parameters describing the transfer of radionuclides from environmental media to different organism types. The project will facilitate quality controlled entry into this database of data obtained in the UK. This will provide the opportunity to analyse data from UK sites in a cost effective way with the ultimate objective of producing UK based tables. Considerable support has been given for the project from both regulators and industry in both the UK and other countries, as well as the European Community and United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency.