Assessing impacts of ionizing radiation on non-human biota : The ERICA Tool.

摘要

There have been significant developments in the last few years concerning methods to explicitlyquantify impacts on the environment arising from exposure by ionising radiation. Central to the ERICA integratedapproach is the quantification of environmental risk whereby data on environmental transfer and dosimetry arecombined to provide a measure of exposure which is compared to exposure levels at which detrimental effects areknown to occur. In view of the large data sets underpinning the assessment approach and the potential to introduceerrors when performing numerous calculations manually, a supporting computer-based tool (the ERICA Tool) hasbeen developed. The ERICA Tool is a computerised, flexible software system that has a structure based upon theERICA Integrated Assessment tiered approach to assessing the radiological risk to biota. The user is guidedthrough the assessment process, recording information and decisions as the assessment progresses. The tool allowsthe necessary calculations to be performed to estimate risks to selected biota. Tier 1 assessments use pre-calculatedenvironmental media concentration limits to estimate risk quotients and require inputs in the form of mediaconcentrations. At Tier 2 dose-rates are calculated but at this stage, the user is allowed to examine and edit most ofthe parameters used in the calculation. For Tier 3 assessments, the same flexibility as Tier 2 is allowed butassessments may be run probabilistically if the underling parameter probability distribution functions are defined.Results from the Tool can be put into context using incorporated data on dose-effects relationships andbackground dose-rates.