A System For Environmental Protection : Reference Dose Models For Fauna And Flora

INTRODUCTION It has previously been argued that, notwithstanding the merits of the system that has developed to ensure the radiological protection of man, there is also a need to develop criteria and frameworks that explicitly demonstrate that the environment will also be protected . In fact, in recent years, this need has been the subject of some considerable discussion and debate, including the holding of at least two symposia (5,6) and the production of an IAEA document . The continued absence of such criteria and frameworks has probably been due to several factors : the lack of a perceived need, in view of statements made by the ICRP ; the difficulty of delivering criteria and frameworks that could be applied to organisms other than man; the almost infinite range of fauna, flora, and ecosystems that exist; and the assumed sheer impracticality of incorporating any form of framework into a regulatory system. All good arguments : except, perhaps, for the first. In order to progress the discussion, some ideas have been put forward by Pentreath (4) to develop a system for protecting the environment, based on narrowing the problem down by defining a few “reference” points. The system would consist of a set of reference dose models for a limited number of fauna and flora, reference methods to apply them to observed or calculated internal and external radionuclide distributions, plus a knowledge of the likely effects of absorbed dose on such reference fauna and flora in terms of one, two or three broadly defined biological end-points. The values obtained via this reference method approach would then be used to compare with derived consideration levels. These values would not be treated as standards but simply as data that would help to inform – along with other relevant environmental, economic, and societal information – the final decision making process. It would therefore be a system based on many but not all of the principles that underpin the system that has been developed for the protection of man. And it would be open, transparent, and amenable to further development via agreed sets of criteria.