Towards a shared method to classify contaminated territories in the case of an accidental nuclear event: the PRIME project

The analysis of the management of the accidentally radioactive contaminated areas such as those around Chernobyl nuclear power plant highlights the fact that the current spatial classification methods hardly help in recovering proper use of the contaminated territory. The cause is mainly to be searched for in the traditional construction of risks assessment methods; these methods rest on criteria defined by institutional experts, which are not applicable in practise because they are not shared by all the stakeholders involved in the management of the contaminated territories. Opposite such top-down tentative management, local efforts supported by Non-Governmental Organizations to restore life in the contaminated area seem to be more fruitful but very time and resources consuming and limited to the specific areas where they are experimented. The aim of the PRIME project, in progress at the French Institute for Radioprotection and Nuclear Safety, is to mix the advantages of both approaches in building a multicriteria decision tool based on the territorial specificities. The criteria of the method are chosen and weighted with representatives of the territory’s stakeholders (decision makers, local actors and experts) to warrant that all the points of view are taken into account and to enable the risk managers to choose the appropriate strategy in case of an accident involving radioactive substances. The area chosen for the pilot study is a 50 km radius territory around the nuclear sites of Tricastin-Pierrelatte in the lower valley of Rhône (France). One of the exploration questions of the PRIME project is whether a multicriteria method may be an appropriate tool to treat the data and make them visible and accessible for all the stakeholders

From field studies to risk management: The SENSIB Project

The consequences for the man and the environment of the discharges of nuclear facilities depend on the importance and the nature of the discharges, but also on the environment which receives them. Thus, the impact of a pollution, which is expressed in term of toxicity, risk or economic consequences, varies according to the characteristics of the environment and the use of this environment by the man. The radioecological sensitivity can be defined as the response of the environment to a radioactive pollution. For a determined discharge, the higher is the response, the more sensitive is the environment. If all the ecosystems appear sensitive, their sensitivity does not concern the same criteria and it is currently difficult to compare these criteria between them. The idea of the SENSIB project is to create a standardized tool which makes it possible to represent and to compare with the same scale the sensitivity of various ecosystems. The SENSIB project aims to develop both a methodology to calculate sensitivity indexes and a radioecological sensitivity scale usable for risk management

Identifying the relationships between agronomic and radioecological variables using a crop model applied to lettuce

This research examines two common variables of radioecological computer codes for the land environment: crop yield (agronomic variable) and interception capacity (radioecological variable). The aim is to characterise their variability and bring to light any relationships between these variables and other input data for the transfer equation. The crop considered in this pilot study is field-grown lettuce, the most widely consumed variety of salad in France. The study is based on the crop model STICS developed by INRA, the French National Institute for Agricultural Research. STICS makes it possible to propose a daily follow up of the production of fresh biomass (yield) and the rate of vegetative cover, which has been linked with the interception capacity via the leaf area index. In our assessment of these variables, we were also able to account for the technical practices used to cultivate lettuce as well as the regional variations in agricultural conditions. The results obtained enable quantifying the relationships between growth time and yield at maturity and between the interception capacity and the development of lettuce. © 2008 Asian Network for Scientific Information

Comparison between radiological and chemical health risks assessments: The Nord-Cotentin study

In 1997, the French Ministries of the Environment and Health commissioned a detailed radioecological analysis of the Nord-Cotentin region in response to public concern about radiological risks associated with local nuclear facilities. This work was entrusted to the Groupe Radioécologie Nord-Cotentin (GRNC), a working group of experts from various origins (industrial facilities operators, public institutions, monitoring agencies, public interest and citizens groups, foreign experts). An epidemiology investigation in 1995 had reported an excess of two radiation-induced leukemia cases in an area near a nuclear reprocessing plant, a finding that attracted great interest in France, and which stimulated the need for further investigation. After the publication of its report in 1999, the GRNC was again commissioned to perform, inter alia, a corresponding assessment on the chemical releases of the local nuclear facilities. This second stage is now achieved and has revealed important similarities as well as some important differences between radiological and chemical risk assessments when applied to the specific case of the Nord-Cotentin nuclear facilities. Due to the considerable amount of work and results of the GRNC, the purpose for this article is to briefly describe the main developments of the risk assessment methodology followed by the GRNC in both cases, to detail some of the main results and to identify and explain, at each step, the similarities and the differences. The whole technical documents that support these works are available on the Internet at 〈http://www.irsn.fr/nord-cotentin/〉. Copyright © Taylor & Francis Inc

Study of the radioecological sensitivity of rice to radioactive contamination

This study focused on the radioecology of rice and explored how the French specificities of rice cultivation can be taken into account in risk assessment. The objective of the study was to characterize the radioecological sensitivity of rice with respect to an accidental release of radioactivity. We want to know if a uniform and specific deposit would involve the same contamination on representative paddy fields of Camargue. To model the transfer of the radionuclides in the rice caryopsis following an accidental atmospheric pollution, we used the classical modelling for the cereals which considers first the interception by the foliage (modelled by an interception ratio) then the translocation to the grain (modelled by a translocation factor). The values of the parameters (interception ratio, translocation factor and yield) were regionalized with the agronomical software ORIZA2000, developed by the IRRI (International Rice Research Institute). We partly calibrated ORIZA2000 for a French rice variety: Ariete, thanks to physiological data provided for International Cooperation Centre in Agronomical Research for Development (CIRAD). ORIZA2000 proposes a daily follow-up of the leaf area index which can be correlated with the interception ratio. Five simulations with various climates, irrigation managements, and technical uses have been inputted on ORIZA2000. The data inputted were extracted from the database AGROSYST from the French Institute for Agronomical Research (INRA) and from the CIRAD. We established two scenarios of contamination. The first one consisted in a single contamination of water. In this case, there is almost no difference between simulations. However, in each simulation (except for organic farming) it is relevant to notice that the fourth depletion of water leads to a significant variation of contamination. The second contamination scenario consisted in a double contamination of water and of air. In that case, technical practices are responsible of the highest source of variability of the grain contamination. The variability of the contamination is mainly due to the variability of the yield which has in the radioecological modelling a dilution effect. The rice produced by organic farming is more sensitive than the rice produced by conventional farming because of low yields. (Résumé d'auteur

La sensibilité radioécologique des territoires : vers un outil opérationnel – le projet SENSIB

La sensibilité radioécologique représente l’intensité de la réponse globale d’un territoire à une pollution radioactive chronique ou accidentelle. Les perspectives d’application opérationnelle de ce concept sont explorées par l’IRSN dans le cadre du projet SENSIB. Le premier enjeu de SENSIB consiste à représenter globalement les conséquences territoriales d’une situation de contamination radioactive, ce qui nécessite de rassembler et d’analyser les données radioécologiques et contextuelles. À cet effet, diverses méthodes innovantes de traitement de la connaissance sont explorées. Le deuxième enjeu est de concevoir un outil unique de gestion de cette connaissance partagé par différents intervenants (autorités, population, experts), ce qui est envisagé par l’application de méthodes d’aide à la décision. La stratégie, les résultats préliminaires et les axes de recherche du projet SENSIB sont brièvement présentés

Guide d'échantillonnage de plantes potagères dans le cadre de diagnostics environnementaux

National audienc

Guide d'échantillonnage de plantes potagères dans le cadre de diagnostics environnementaux

National audienc