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Workshop reports of the PROTECT project

Workshop 1: Regulatory approaches and requirements

The workshop was held with environmental regulators, NGOs and some industry representation (although the focus of this first workshop was to elicit views from regulators). The aim was to discuss and explore in more detail areas relating to the protection of the environment and in particular obtain views on the following:

1. Expectations or requirements of environmental protection (as a whole)
2. Expectations or requirements of both chemical and radioactive approaches
3. Suitability of any approaches that derive numerical values for use as criteria or standards
4. Suitability of any numerical values currently applied as criteria or standards

Issues discussed included:

1. Justification for regulating the nuclear industry
2. Alignment of chemical and radioactive substances regulation
3. Appropriate targets for protection
4. Demonstration of compliance against protection goals
5. Credibility of currently suggested benchmark values for ionising radiation and appropriateness of methods used to derive them
6. Treatment of background exposure within assessments

The workshop report records discussions during the meeting and does not necessarily reflect the views of members of the PROTECT consortium and no attempt was made to comment on (or 'correct') the discussions.

Workshop 2: Approaches to demonstrate protection of the environment from ionising radiation

The purpose of this workshop was to begin evaluation of the approaches available for use in the demonstration of the protection of the environment from ionising radiation. The workshop brought together developers of key approaches and current and potential users of these approaches. Specific objectives of the workshop were to:

1. Discuss how the approaches are being used in assessments
2. Identify areas which work well and those which require improvement
3. Begin to assess the relevance (and applicability) of the approaches to third parties

A proportion of the workshop was devoted to the application of three approaches (RESRAD-BIOTA, ERICA TOol and EA R&D128), which are readily available to users, to a simple scenario. The report records the discussions during the workshop, the results and follow-up evaluation of the scenario application.

Workshop 3: Approaches to demonstrate protection of the environment from ionising radiation

This workshop reported back on the activities highlighted in workshop 1 and discussed the application of available tools to radiological environmental impact assessments. The scope was expanded to allow:

1. Consideration of the then (Jan 2008) recently available relevant publications including the then draft report released by ICRP Committee 5
2. Approaches suggested by PROTECT  to propose levels of environmental protection
3. Comparison of human and non-human biota exposure assessments

The workshop report summarises the various presentations and associated discussion. The latter sections are devoted to a scenario application conducted during the workshop which had the aim of to begin the discussion of the use of the available numeric benchmark values within assessments; and (ii) compare results for humans and biota.

Workshop 4: Numerical benchmarks - proposed levels and underlying reasoning

This workshop was held to discuss the numeric benchmark values (their derivation and use) as presented within the then (2008) draft PROTECT Deliverable 5. Various key organisations had been asked to present their current position with regard to radiological protection of the environment and also their view on the content of the deliverable which was subsequently recorded in the annex associated with the final Deliverable 5.