Determination of derived levels for radioactivity concentrations in foodstuff and environmental matrices at the Joint Research Centre (JRC-Ispra)

Abstract

The European Commission Joint Research Centre offers scientific expertise and competences from a wide range of disciplines in support of almost all EU policy areas. Originally established under the Euratom Treaty, a proportion of the JRC work is still in the nuclear field. In particular, in the framework of the operation and pre-decommissioning activities of its nuclear installations, the JRC-Ispra (Italy) has implemented an environmental monitoring program in the area surrounding the site to verify the radiological impact on the public and on the environment. In fact, due to the nuclear activities on site, the local population is considered to be more exposed to radiological risks than the rest of the public. Measurements types and frequencies in the monitoring program are defined to demonstrate that releases of airborne and liquid radioactive effluents into the environment comply with authorized discharge limits and any other regulatory requirements: the effective dose expected to be incurred by the reference person is here fixed of the order of 10 ${\upmu }$Sv in a year. Since this dose value is not directly comparable with the radiometric measurements carried out on environmental and food samples, appropriate derived levels have been defined in terms of radionuclides concentration. The direct comparison between the radiometric measurements and the derived levels enables prompt investigations or actions in order to ensure compliance with the legal constraints. This work describes the criteria adopted and the calculation models applied for the definition the derived levels for the environmental monitoring network of the JRC-Ispra.