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CEH Information Gateway

The Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (CEH) is the UK's Centre of Excellence for integrated research in terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems and their interaction with the atmosphere. The CEH Information Gateway is a new tool for finding, viewing and accessing CEH's data resources including radioecology datasets. To view available radioecological data type Radioecology into the Search box. More data will be added in the future - one of the intial datasets available is that for natural radionuclide concentrations in soil, sediment and water in England and Wales (see England & Wales EA for report Assessment of naturally occurring radionuclides in England and Wales describing these data).

 Posted by: Catherine Barnett

IAEA EMRAS II Biota Modelling Group- questionnaire

Your views are required by IAEA EMRAS II Biota Modelling Group. The Biota Modelling Group is reviewing the requirements for dynamic modelling within environmental (i.e. wildlife) radiological assessments, together with an overview of available models. To help achieve this we are consulting with colleagues using a questionnaire. The questionnaire can be found here.

Note: Questionnaire now closed.
Further information available soon.

Removed from News section by Catherine Barnett 15/06/11

Your views are required by IAEA EMRAS II Biota Modelling Group

The Biota Modelling Group is reviewing the requirements for dynamic modelling within environmental (i.e. wildlife) radiological assessments, together with an overview of available models. To help achieve this we are consulting with colleagues using a questionnaire. The questionnaire can be found on the IAEA  page.

If you would like to participate in the review please send your completed questionnaire to jvibatll@SCKCEN.BE by 28^th February 2011.

To date (January 2011) we have had 13 responses from regulators, industry and model users/developers in Europe and North America.

A summary of the initial response will be available by the end of January 2011.

The next Training course will be held at CEH Lancaster on 12-14 October 2011.

Please see the training course  page for further information.

The Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (CEH) is the UK's Centre of Excellence for integrated research in terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems and their interaction with the atmosphere. The CEH Information Gateway is a new tool for finding, viewing and accessing CEH's data resources including radioecology datasets. To view available radioecological data type Radioecology into the Search box. More data will be added in the future - one of the intial datasets available is that for natural radionuclide concentrations in soil, sediment and water in England and Wales (see England & Wales EA for report (Assessment of naturally occurring radionuclides in England and Wales) describing these data).

An issue of Radiation Environmental Biophysics with papers arising from IAEA supported workshops on the transfer of radionuclides to wildlife held in Monaco and Vienna in 2009 has now been published and the full text is available here.Abstracts are available here.

Links to presentations and practicals can be found here

Please email Cath Barnett to register an interest in future courses.

A newsletter providing an overview of the findings of the EC EURATOM PROTECT project and providing details of the PROTECT-KE project is now available.

If you wish to be added to the Newsletter email list please ask Brenda Howard.

The June 2010 issue of the Journal of Radiological Protection contains a special section featuring papers from the PROTECT project and the IAEA EMRAS Biota Working Group (BWG). Abstract are available on the PROTECT and BWG pages of this site. UNTIL THE END OF 2010 ALL ARTICLES IN THE SPECIAL SECTION HAVE BEEN MADE FREELY AVAILABLE BY THE JOURNAL TO DOWNLOAD FROM THEIR WEBSITE.

The papers are:

Protection of the environment from ionizing radiation in a regulatory context - an
overview of the PROTECT coordinated action project
B J Howard, N A Beresford, P Andersson, J E Brown, D Copplestone, K Beaugelin-Seiller,
J Garnier-Laplace, P D Howe, D Oughton and P Whitehouse (195-214)

A multi-criteria weight of evidence approach for deriving ecological benchmarks for
radioactive substances
J Garnier-Laplace, C Della-Vedova, P Andersson, D Copplestone, C Cailes, N A Beresford,
B J Howard, P Howe and P Whitehouse (215--233)

Background dose-rates to reference animals and plants arising from exposure to
naturally occurring radionuclides in aquatic environments
A Hosseini, N A Beresford, J E Brown, D G Jones, M Phaneuf, H Thørring and T Yankovich
(235-264)

Assessment of risk to wildlife from ionising radiation: can initial screening tiers be used
with a high level of confidence?
N A Beresford, A Hosseini, J E Brown, C Cailes, K Beaugelin-Seiller, C L Barnett and
D Copplestone (265-281)

Considerations for the integration of human and wildlife radiological assessments
D Copplestone, J E Brown and N A Beresford (283-297)

An international model validation exercise on radionuclide transfer and doses to
freshwater biota
T L Yankovich, J Vives i Batlle, S Vives-Lynch, N A Beresford, C L Barnett,
K Beaugelin-Seiller, J E Brown, J-J Cheng, D Copplestone, R Heling, A Hosseini,
B J Howard, S Kamboj, A I Kryshev, T Nedveckaite, J T Smith and M D Wood (299-340)

Predicting the radiation exposure of terrestrial wildlife in the Chernobyl exclusion
zone: an international comparison of approaches
N A Beresford, C L Barnett, J E Brown, J-J Cheng, D Copplestone, S Gaschak, A Hosseini,
B J Howard, S Kamboj, T Nedveckaite, G Olyslaegers, J T Smith, J Vives i Batlle,
S Vives-Lynch and C Yu (341-373)

Invited Editorial: Protection of the environment from ionising radiation: developing criteria and evaluating approaches for use in regulation
David Copplestone, Nicholas Beresford and Brenda Howard

All the presentations from course 1  are now available

For details of training courses see here

We suggest that course participants become familiar with the following documents prior to the course:

D-ERICA: An integrated approach to the assessment and management of environmental risks from ionising radiation. Description of purpose, methodology and application. Full text

ERICA Tool help Full text

PROTECT executive summary Full text

ICRP (International Commission on Radiological Protection). 2008. Environmental Protection: the concept and use of Reference Animals and Plants. ICRP Publication 108. Annals of the ICRP, 38, 4-6, 242pp.

Copplestone, D., Wood, M. D., Bielby, S., Jones. S.R., Vives, J., Beresford, N.A. 2003. Habitat regulations for Stage 3 assessments: radioactive substances authorisations. R&D Technical Report P3-101/SP1a. Environment Agency, Bristol.

USDoE (United States Department of Energy). 2002. A graded approach for evaluating radiation doses to aquatic and terrestrial biota. Voluntary consensus technical standard. DOE-STD-1153-2002. USDoE, Washington, D.C.

Ulanovsky A., Pröhl, G. 2006. A practical method for assessment of dose conversion coefficients for aquatic biota. Radiat. Environ. Biophys., 45, 203-214.

Howard, B.J., Beresford, N.A., Andersson, P., Brown, J.E., Copplestone, D., Beaugelin-Seiller, K., Garnier-Laplace, J., Howe, P., Oughton, D., Whitehouse, P. In Press. Protection of the environment from ionising radiation in a regulatory context - an overview of the PROTECT coordinated action. J. Radiological Prot.
Contact Brenda Howard for a copy if required.

Copplestone, D., Bielby, S., Jones, S.R., Patton, D., Daniel, P., Gize, I. 2001. Impact assessment of ionising radiation on wildlife. R&D publication 128. Environment Agency, Bristol.

Further suggested reading:

Beresford, N.A., Barnett, C.L., Howard, B.J., Scott, W.A., Brown, J.E., Copplestone D. 2008. Derivation of transfer parameters for use within the ERICA Tool and the default concentration ratios for terrestrial biota. J. Environ. Radioact., 99, 1393-1407.
Contact Nick Beresford for a copy if required.

Hosseini, A., Thørring H., Brown J.E., Saxén R., Ilus, E. 2008. Transfer of radionuclides in aquatic ecosystems- Default concentration ratios for aquatic biota in the Erica Tool. J. Environ. Radioact., 99, 1408-1429.

Beresford, N.A., Barnett, C.L., Brown, J., Cheng, J-J. Copplestone, D., Filistovic, V., Hosseini, A., Howard, B.J., Jones, S.R., Kamboj, S., Kryshev, A., Nedveckaite, T., Olyslaegers, G., Saxén, R., Sazykina, T., Vives i Batlle, J., Vives-Lynch, S., Yankovich, T. and Yu, C. 2008. Inter-comparison of models to estimate radionuclide activity concentrations in non-human biota. Radiat. Environ. Biophys., 47, 491-514.
Contact Nick Beresford for a copy if required.

Beresford, N.A., Broadley, M.R., Howard, B.J., Barnett C.L. &. White P.J. 2004. Estimating radionuclide transfer to wild species - data requirements and availability for terrestrial ecosystems. J. Rad. Prot., 24, A89-A103.
Contact Nick Beresford for a copy if required.

Garnier-Laplace, J., Della-Vedova, C., Andersson, P., Copplestone, D., Cailes, C., Beresford, N.A., Howard, B. J., Howe, P., Whitehouse, P. In press. A multi-criteria weight of evidence approach to derive ecological benchmarks for radioactive substances. J. Rad. Prot.

Garnier-Laplace J., Della-Vedova, C., Gilbin, R., Copplestone, D., Hingston, J., Ciffroy, P. 2006. First derivation of predicted-no-effect values for freshwater and terrestrial ecosystems exposed to radioactive substances. Environ. Sci. Technol., 40, 6498-6505.

Garnier-Laplace J., Copplestone, D., Gilbin, R., Alonzo, F., Ciffroy, P., Gilek, M., Agüero, A., Björk, M., Oughton, D.H., Jaworska, A., Larsson, C-M., Hingston, J.L. 2008. Issues and practices in the use of effects data from FREDERICA in the ERICA Integrated Approach. J. Environ. Radioact., 99, 1474-1483.

ICRP (International Commission on Radiation Protection). 2007. Recommendations of the International Commission on Radiological Protection. Publication 103. Annals of the ICRP, 37, 2-3, 332pp.

RESRAD-BIOTA Help Full text

Beresford, N.A., Hosseini, A., Brown, J.E.,Cailes, C., Copplestone, D., Barnett, C.L., Beaugelin-Seiller, K. 2008. PROTECT Deliverable 4. Evaluation of approaches for protecting the environment from ionising radiation in a regulatory context. Comments received on Deliverable 4.

Beresford, N.A., Hosseini, A., Brown, J.E., Cailes, C., Beaugelin-Seiller, K., Barnett, C.L.,Copplestone. D. In Press. Assessment of risk to wildlife from ionising radiation: can screening tiers be used with a high level of confidence? J. Radiological Prot.
Contact Nick Beresford for a copy if required.

IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency). 2001. Generic models for use in assessing the impact of discharges of radioactive substances to the environment. Safety Report Series No.19. Full text

If you have tried to access the EURATOM PROTECT project website (http://www.ceh.ac.uk/PROTECT) you will have been redirected to these pages. This new site replaces the PROTECT website and contains all the outputs of the PROTECT project (and those of the preceeding ERICA, FASSET and EPIC projects which were hosted on the PROTECT website).

The site is still under development and we are aware that some important links are currently missing. Please let us know if you think anything should be on the site which is not.

Argonne National Laboratory has released a new version of the RESRAD-BIOTA code. RESRAD-BIOTA evaluates radiological doses to animals and plants. This new version (V.1.5) has probabilistic analysis capability that allows users to conduct uncertainty analysis on most input parameters. All RESRAD Family of Codes can be downloaded from the RESRAD Web site (http://www.evs.anl.gov/resrad). This new version has been tested successfully on Windows Vista, Windows XP, and Windows 7 operating systems and 64-bit computers.

RESRAD email: resrad@anl.gov