From radioecological sensibility to risk management : The SENSIB project

Titre du congrès :2nd International Conference on Radioactivity in the environment Ville du congrès :Nice Date du congrès :02/10/2005

The conséquences for the man and the environment of the discharges of nuclear facilities dépend on the importance and the nature of the discharges, but also on the environment which receives them. Thus, the impact of pollution varies according to the characteristics of the environment and the use of this environment by the man. The radioecological sensitivity can be defined as the response of the environment to a radioactive pollution. For a determined discharge, the higher is the response, the more sensitive is the environment. If ail the ecosystems appear sensitive, their sensitivity does not concern the same criteria and it is currently difficult to compare thèse criteria between them. The idea of the "Radioecological Sensitivity project" (SENSIB project) is to create standardized tools which make it possible to represent and to compare with the same scale the sensitivity of various ecosystems. The SENSIB project, launched in 2004 by the French Lnstitute for Radioprotection and Nuclear Safety, aims to develop both a methodology to calculate sensitivity indexes and a radioecological sensitivity scale usable for risk management.