Desarrollo de procedimientos rápidos de ensayo para la vigilancia radiológica ambiental en situaciones de emergencia.

Abstract

In the event of possible nuclear or radiological emergencies, governments or international organizations must develop an emergency response preparedness to ensure the protection of workers, public, intervention personnel and environment. In addition, there is growing concern about possible terrorist attacks or malicious acts using radioactive or orphan sources, so a proper emergency management is necessary. In particular, the assessment of environmental contamination should be carried out to establish which areas have been affected and determine the level of contamination in each of the matrices or environmental compartments, such as air, water, soil, food or vegetation. This is the main objective of the emergency environmental radiological surveillance plans. This PhD thesis provides the development of rapid testing procedures to evaluate the contamination produced by a radiological or nuclear emergency in different environmental matrices. Firstly, a study of the methodology of radiological emergencies response has been developed, taking into account, on the one hand, the environmental matrices to be analyzed, and on the other hand, the term source or radionuclides to be determined in an emergency. Specifically, several source terms are studied produced as a consequence of an accident at a nuclear power plant, a malicious act using orphan sources, "dirty bombs" or improvised nuclear devices, and an accident in a radioactive facility in the Valencian Community. From the results of this study, the procedures to be developed in the PhD thesis have been selected.