BIOPROTA - International forum biosphere modeling final disposal

The international forum BIOPROTA has existed for 22 years and is concerned with biosphere modeling of radionuclides that are released into the environment from final repositories for radioactive waste. The BfS is a founding member and uses the international research results for its own professional work. An example of this is the regulation of the calculation basis for the final disposal of highly radioactive waste in Germany.

The BIOPROTA network is financed by the participating organizations. The membership fee covers the costs of BIOPROTA's technical support team for the organization and implementation of the work program. Most recently, the association had 27 members worldwide from authorities, operators of facilities for the final storage of radioactive waste, consulting companies and universities.

Objectives

As part of BIOPROTA, the latest research results on biosphere modeling during final storage are exchanged and questions are addressed in an international network. The most important issues affecting environmental protection and human health resulting from the long-term release of radionuclides from repositories are discussed.

Final disposal offers a resource-saving gain in knowledge. Since individual countries such as if, for example, Sweden, Finland or France can already look back on greater experience in final storage, countries that are less familiar with the topic also benefit from this.

Results

The BIOPROTA network has already published extensive literature, which can be viewed by anyone interested on the BIOPROTA-website. In addition to the reports on the annual meetings, which summarize all the presentations, there are reports on each of the individual topics that were selected for workshops. The current report deals with the biosphere transport of the dose-relevant radionuclide C-14 (Thorne et al., 2022). In addition to a review of the biochemical behavior of C-14 during transport in the various compartments of the ecosystems, this report also contains support for the conceptual model approach of the transport behavior.

BIOPROTA's most important report is the Biosphere Modeling and Assessment program report (BIOMASS; IAEA, 2003). This guide is the standard work for the systematic description and modeling of the biosphere during the final disposal of radioactive waste. An update of the report was jointly prepared by the participants of BIOPROTA in order to incorporate the new findings of the last two decades into the BIOMASS report (Lindborg et al., 2022). These changes affect, among other things: the improvements in the methodological description of biosphere modeling in final disposal, the handling of uncertainties in modeling and the description of the BIOMASS method based on real locations.

Literature

• IAEA (2003). Reference Biospheres for Solid Radioactive Waste Disposal, Report of BIOMASS Theme 1 of the BIOsphere Modelling and ASSessment (BIOMASS) Programme. IAEA-BIOMASS-6, Vienna, 2003.
• Lindborg, T. et al. (2022). Safety assessments undertaken using the BIOMASS methodology: lessons learnt and methodological enhancements. Journal of Radiological Protection, 42, 020503.
• Thorne, M., Ikonen, A. and K. Smith (2022). Transport of C-14 in Terrestrial and Freshwater Environments: Final Report. Version 1.0, 7 December 2022.