ICRP C5 Update

1. ICRP C5 Update K.A. Higley – PROTECT Meeting, Vienna Austria June, 2007

2. Acknowledgements • Most of the following slides have been “borrowed” from previous presentations of other C5 members • If there are • mistakes, they are mine • overstatements, they are also mine • If I got it completely right, it is because of the brilliance of my C5 colleagues

3. RJ Pentreath (chair) UK CM Larsson (vice-chair) Sweden K Higley (secretary) USA P Strand Norway A Johnston Australia A Real Spain F Brechignac France K Sakai Japan G Pröhl Germany ICRP Committee 5 membership

4. ICRP C5 • Concerned with radiological protection of the environment. • Aim: development and application of approaches to environmental protection that are: • Compatible with those for radiological protection of man, and • With those for protection of the environment from other potential hazards.

5. Directions of C5 Work • Develop a framework for the assessment of radiation exposure and effects on non-human species: • For planned, existing, and emergency exposure situations. • That will serve as a benchmark for international and individual national approaches to environmental protection • And that will parallel the framework for human radiation protection. • Done in an open and transparent manner.

6. Commonalities, RP (hum) and RP (env) Planned, existing and emergency exposure situations Environmental radionuclide concentration(s) Reference Person Reference Animals and Plants Dose limits, constraints, reference levels Derived Consideration Levels Decision-making regarding public health and environment for the same environmental situation

7. C5 Four Year Plan, Major Documents • Reference Animals and Plants (2007) • Supporting database (transfer, background, etc) • Radiation dosimetry • Radiation effects • Radiation weighting factors (2008) • Commonality of RAPs approach to other environmental protection efforts (2008-9) • Will build on updated scientific information and recent methodological achievements (EC projects, UNSCEAR……

8. High Level Overview

9. Reference Animals and Plants • A reference animal or plant is a hypothetical entity, • With the assumed basic characteristics of a specific type of animal or plant, as described to the generality of the taxonomic level of family, • With precisely defined anatomical, physiological, and life-history properties • That can be used for the purposes of relating exposure to dose, and dose to effects, for that type of living organism.

10. Reference Animals and Plants • Deer • Rat • Bee • Earthworm • Duck • Frog • Trout • Marine Flatfish • Crab • Pine Tree • Grass • Seaweed

11. Criteria for Selection of RAPs

12. Consideration of Exposure Situations and Computation of DCCs Small burrowing mammal exposed from a planar source at the surface of the soil Computational ”animal” with ”liver” and ”testes”

13. Overview of FRED(ERICA) Effects Data; Access via www.erica-project.org

14. Natural Background* *Brown et al.; Gomez-Ros et al. 2004. Journal of Radiological Protection, 24:4A, pp 63 - 88

15. Derived Consideration Levels – Individual Effects

16. Derived Consideration Levels - Ecosystems

17. Derived Consideration Levels - Decisions

18. In Depth Status Report

19. STATUS: Existing Information on Radiation Effects for RAPs

20. Preliminary Data Survey Data on RAPS organism available Data on RAPS-related organism available No data available

21. Availability of Acute Data =data available = related data maybe available = no data available

22. Availability of Chronic Data =data available = related data maybe available = no data available

23. Data on RAPS-related organism available No data available How to Proceed Data on RAPS organism available Scaling functions?

24. STATUS: Dosimetry for RAPS

25. Objectives • Select approach to estimate Dose Per Unit Concentration (DPUC) • Kinetics not taken into account • Doses to organs not explicitly considered • Consider simple geometries • Spheres, ellipsoids, cylinders • Calculate DPUC values for ICRP RAPs • Average dose rate for the whole body per unit activity concentration • In the organisms, or • Surrounding media.

26. Dose Concept • Absorbed dose • Dose equivalent and effective doses as used for humans not applicable • Radiation weighting factors under discussion • Absorbed fraction • Fraction of energy emitted by a radiation source that is absorbed within the target tissue, organ or organism • Homogeneous medium, organism immersed in water • Dint = E * AF(E) • Dext = E * [1-AF(E)]

27. Influence of shape • Internal exposure • AF spheres • AF for various shapes • Interpolation • Shape • Mass • Energy • => Enables estimations for a wide range of ellipsoids • External exposure • DCCs for spheres • etc.

28. Absorbed fractions for photons as a function of mass and energy for spheres

29. Absorbed fractions for electrons as a function of mass and energy for spheres

30. AF for non-spherical organisms:10 keV photons and electrons

31. AF for non-spherical organisms:100 keV photons and electrons

32. External exposure • Terrestrial RAPs • Based and detailed MC calculations for specified geometries • On-soil: • Planar source on the soil with a surface roughness of 3 mm, • Volume source with a thickness of 10 cm, • In-soil: • Middle of a volume source with a thickness of 50 cm • Aquatic • In-water • On-water

33. Derived Consideration Concentrations (DCCs) • In Progress • All RAPs • Partly for different habitats • 75 radionuclides • Daughters included if half-life < 10 d • External and internal exposure

34. STATUS: Supporting Database Concentration and transfer data used in the derivation of external and internal dose-rates for RAPs

35. Objective • Derive a reference set of • Values for naturally occurring radionuclides in sea water, freshwater, sediment and soil from which to calculate the reference external background dose rates for RAPs. • Values for naturally occurring nuclides on a whole body basis from which to calulate internal reference background dose rates for RAPs. • Transfer factors for anthropogenic radionuclides to allow whole body activity concentrations and thereby internal dose rates to be derived for RAPs.

36. Selection of radionuclides • For artificial radionuclides, equilibrium concentration ratios (CRs) have been derived for the following: • Ag, Am, C, Cd, Ce, Cl, Cm, Co, Cs, Eu, H, I, Mn, Nb, Ni, Np, P, Pu, Ru, S, Sb, Se, Sr, Tc, Zr • For naturally-occurring radionuclides, activity concentrations in RAPs and their environment were derived for all radionuclides in U-238 and Th-232 decay chains with half-life > 10 days; and for other important primordial and cosmogenic radionuclides

37. Terrestrial CRs for RAPs – data coverage

38. Natural radionuclides considered * Assumed for dosimetric purposes for progeny with t1/2 less than 10 days.

39. ACTION 1 : External dose-rates from naturally occurring radionuclides

40. External dose-rates from naturally occurring radionuclides • Marine – Raw data collated. Preliminary typical values derived. • Terrestrial – Work in progress • e.g. World generic soil values (UNSCEAR, 2000) • Freshwater – Work in progress. Data available J.E. Brown, S.R. Jones , R. Saxén, H.Thørring and J. Vives i Batlle (2004). Radiation doses to aquatic organisms from natural radionuclides. Journal of Radiological Protection, 24, pp. A63-A77. UNSCEAR (2000).Sources and effects of ionising radiation

41. Concentrations of naturally occuring radionuclides in seawater (Bq/m3) Review based on Bowen (1979), IAEA (1988a), IAEA (1988b), IAEA (1990), Cherry & Shannon (1974), Woodhead (1973), Brown et al (2004)

42. Concentrations of naturally occuring radionuclides in marine sediment (Bq/kg d.w.) • Activity concentrations depend on underlying sediment type, e.g. clay content strongly influences K-40 concentrations. Separate sediments into sand, silt, clay where appropriate and data coverage sufficient ? Review based on : Baxter (1983); BNFL(1994); Bowen(1979); Brown (1997); Brown et al. (2004); Grøttheim (1999); Hamilton et al. (1994); Holm & Fukai (1986); IAEA (1988a); Kershaw et al. (1992); McCartney et al. (1990); McDonald et al. (1991);Van der Heijde et al. (1990);Walker & Rose (1990).

43. Marine – seawater and sediments • Broader review necessary ? • Focus on nuclides important from an exposure perspective ? • Summarised or generic values can be derived • (statistically) summarised values difficult to derive because original information often provided as typical or representative values.

44. ACTION 2 : Set of natural radionuclide concentrations for internal dose rates

45. Set Of Natural Radionuclide Concentrations For Internal Dose Rates • Marine – Starting from data collated for Brown et al. (2004). • Database further developed and expanded • Contains approximately 1500 data. • Macroalgae (n=669), • Crustaceans (n=374), • Fish (n=373) • Most data are Po-210 • Terrestrial and freshwater not considered here

46. All compiled data (RO coverage)

47. Marine RAPs Jklfhd-lsdgfsjd Hj.hsdjkgfhksd Macroalgae Crustaceans √ = data available (In brackets – only limited amount of data n<3) RO = data available for ERICA reference organisms (but not RAPs) - = No data Fish

48. Available data (example) Concentrations of Polonium-210 (Bq/kg FW) in RAPs Concentrations of Polonium-210 (Bq/kg FW) in corresponding ERICA reference organisms (ROs)

49. ACTION 3: CRs for Deriving Internal Activity Concentrations of Artificial Radionuclides

50. CRs for Deriving Internal Activity Concentrations of Artificial Radionuclides • Marine – Comprehensive database created by NRPA • Terrestrial – Preliminary summary table provided by CEH. NRPA working on database in conjunction with CEH • Freshwater – Data made available from STUK. Further work necessary (Data not presented here).