Protection of the Environment from Ionising Radiation in a Regulatory Context

The need for a system to protect the environment from ionising radiation is now generally recognised internationally following considerable international and national effort. The focus has been on collating relevant information and developing different ap proaches to enable regulatory assessments to be conducted. The CA will consult widely with industry and regulators to review national and international regulatory instruments, procedures, underlying principles and the criteria currently applied in differ ent countries to environmental protection from both chemical and radioactive substances. This will involve inviting participants from different countries particularly from within Europe, but also from the broader international community, to identify the k ey regulatory instruments for assessment. A critical review will identify similarities and differences in approaches for chemicals and radioactive substances, evaluating the extent to which these fulfil the objectives of environmental protection. The CA will also comparatively evaluate the existing (and developing) approaches to assess their practicability in a regulatory context, assessing their relative merits in terms of complexity, fitness for purpose, cost and robustness. This will include considera tion of the ability of the differing approaches to meet the aspirations of regulators and industry. A key issue is the definition of an appropriate level of protection, taking into account legal requirements to protect individual organisms, populations o r habitats. Definition on an appropriate level of protection cannot be derived from radiological protection alone; comparison has to be made to protection aims for hazardous substances with similar modes of actions as agreed in international and national recommendations and legislation. An aim of the CA will therefore be to consider appropriate numerical target values, designed to assure compliance with environmental protection goals.