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Ever since the Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident in April of 19861 European Community (EC) has worked towards collecting routine environmental radiological monitoring data from national networked monitoring systems. European Radiological Data Exchange Platform (EURDEP) was created in 19952 to that end – to provide radiation monitoring data from most European countries reported in nearly real-time. During the response operations for the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant accident (March 2011) the IAEA Incident and Emergency Centre (IEC) managed, harmonized and shared the large amount of data that was being generated from different organizations. This task underscored the need for a system which allows sharing large volumes of radiation monitoring data in an emergency. In 2014 EURDEP started the submission of the European radiological data to the International Radiation Monitoring Information System (IRMIS) as a European Regional HUB for IRMIS. IRMIS supports the implementation of the Convention on Early Notification of a Nuclear Accident by providing a web application for the reporting, sharing, visualizing and analysing of large quantities of environmental radiation monitoring data during nuclear or radiological emergencies. IRMIS is not an early warning system that automatically reports when there are significant deviations in radiation levels or when values are detected above certain levels. However, the configuration of the visualization features offered by IRMIS may help Member States to determine where elevated gamma dose rate measurements during a radiological or nuclear emergency indicate that actions to protect the public are necessary. The data can be used to assist emergency responders determine where and when to take necessary actions to protect the public. This new web online tool supports the IAEA’s Unified System for Information Exchange in Incidents and Emergencies (USIE)3, an online tool where competent authorities can access information about all emergency situations, ranging from a lost radioactive source to a full-scale nuclear emergency. |
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