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ALARA in Existing Expoure Situations - Meeting Report

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Category: Articles
Published: Saturday, 13 July 2013 09:28

SHAW P., CROUAIL P.

The concept of 'exisitng exposure situations' was introduced by ICRP Publicaion N° 103 (2007), and is defined as exposure situations that already exist when a decision on control has to be taken.

Journal of Radiological Protection, Vol. 33, N° 2, 2013, pp. 487-490.

Abstract

The concept of “existing exposure situations” was introduced by ICRP in Publication No. 103 (2007), and is defined as exposure situations that already exist when a decision on control has to be taken. Examples include radon in homes, aircrew exposure to cosmic radiation, remediation of historically contaminated land, and post-emergency situations.

Optimisation is the key radiation protection principle for existing exposure situations, although it is not always clear how to apply this in practice. Consequently, the aim of the 14th EAN workshop was to focus on how the ALARA principle can be applied to the whole range of existing exposure situations, considering the wider principles and strategies that might be adopted, as well as specific methods for implementing ALARA in practice.

The Workshop was officially opened by Mr Fergus O'Dowd, Minister of State at the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources and the Environment, Community and Local Government. There were 66 participants from 17 different countries, with half the programme devoted to presentations, and half to Working Group discussions based on the following topic areas:

  • ALARA challenges and practicalities at the national and regional level
  • Considerations in choosing dose reference levels
  • Economic and technical factors, and endpoints of optimisation
  • Societal factors and stakeholder engagement


On the final day, the reports from the four working groups were presented and discussed, and form the workshop conclusions and recommendations. These, plus individual presentations (slides and papers), are available to download from the EAN website.


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