Emergency Preparedness

Phases of Emergency Preparedness and Response

IAEA Functional Requirements for Response

Establishing Emergency Management and Operations

• On-site / Off-site

• At the Local / National / International levels

• Coordination between all responding organizations is necessary

Identifying, Notifying and Activating

• Operator shall promptly determine the emergency class and initiate appropriate actions

• The notified off-site body shall promptly initiate the appropriate preplanned and coordinated response

Taking Mitigatory Action

• First responders shall take all appropriate actions to minimize the consequences of the accident

Taking Urgent Protective Action

• Save lives (conventional injuries prevails over radiological risk)

• Prevent the occurrence of deterministic effects

• Avert doses in order to reduce the occurrence of stochastic effects

Providing Information and Issuing Instructions and Warnings to the Public

• There shall be no undue delay that could jeopardize the effectiveness of the protective actions

Protecting Emergency Workers

• Justification – Optimization – Limitation

Assessing the Initial Phase

• Magnitude and likely development of hazardous conditions shall be appraised initially to keep able to anticipate

• Radiation monitoring and environmental contamination shall be followed to identify new hazards promptly (+ concept of oil)

• Emergency conditions and assessments, recommended and taken protective actions shall be made available to all responding organization

Taking Countermeasures Against and Longer Term Protective Actions

• Food bans shall be taken to avert doses

• Contaminated areas and wastes shall be appropriately managed

• Protective actions no longer justified shall be lifted

Mitigating the Non-Radiological Consequences

• Explaining health risks, personal actions to reduce risk

• Monitoring economic and employment conditions

Conducting Recovery Operations

Protective Actions

      Protection of the public should be optimized by using a set of protective actions and other response actions (monitoring, information, etc.). These actions are expected to decrease the exposure of people and reduce or avoid undesirable consequences.

Urgent Protective Actions

• Sheltering

• Evacuation

• Iodine Prophylaxis

Other Protective Actions

• Food Bans

• Temporary or Permanent Resettlement

Sheltering and Evacuation

• Sheltering may be used first to facilitate further countermeasures, e.g. evacuation

• Evacuation might be preferred to sheltering where it can be carried out quickly and easily, e.g. for small groups of people

• Duration of sheltering is unlikely to be practicable for more than 1 day (the effectiveness of sheltering varies greatly)

• External exposure can be reduced by a factor 10 (large structure), while some building provides little protection from external gamma radiation

• For a short release, most buildings will reduce inhalation doses by a factor of 2 or 3. Effectiveness decreases rapidly after a few hours as the concentrations of radioactive material in the building increase

• After passage of the plume, the inhalation doses in most structures could even be greater than those outside. Ventilation after a major release has terminated.

Iodine Prophylaxis

• Prevents radioiodine from reaching the thyroid (saturation by stable iodine)

Temporary or Permanent Resettlement

• Worldwide experience following nuclear and non-nuclear accidents shows that nobody is willing to leave affected areas…

• In general, while authorities require individuals to leave due to excessive levels of exposure, they will aim to rehabilitate these areas to allow further human activities

• The best strategy is specific to the exposure situation and represents the best level of protection that can be achieved under the prevailing circumstances (avoid to determine in advance an a priori dose level below which the optimisation process should stop).

      ICRP publishes several publication about recommendations.

• Publication 103, 2007

      The 2007 Recommendations of theInternational Commission on Radiological Protection

• Publication 109, 2009

      Application of the Commission’s Recommendations for the Protection of People in Emergency Exposure Situations

• Publication 111, 2009

     Application of the Commission’s Recommendations to the Protection of People Living in Long-term Contaminated Areas after a Nuclear Accident or a Radiation Emergency

      Reference dose levels that ICRP recommended in Global Protection Strategy are:

• Emergency exposure situation (weeks-months): 20–100 mSv

• Existing exposure situation (months-years): 1–20 mSv (per year)

• Normal situation or Long-term (decade or more): 1 mSv per year

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IAEA Approach

      Among accidental releases into the environment, atmospheric releases are of the highest importance

• Large areas are quickly concerned

• Large amount of released activity

• Pollution transfers

• People are directly exposed

• Plume shine, plume inhalation

Basic Steps for the Radiological Consequences Assessment

Release date

• Time dependent release of radionuclides activities

• Observation/Prediction

Meteorological data

• Observation/Prediction

Assessment of contamination of environment

• Air, ground, water, vegetables …

• Decision making about assessment assumptions

Assessment of radiological impact

• Several exposure pathways (external, internal)

• Decision making about assessment assumptions

Results (doses, dose rates, ground/air concentration)

• VS protective action guide levels + Delays

• VS monitoring results (quality of the prediction