Civil Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
20.3 Emergency Management and Emergency Measures
20.3.1 Basics of Emergency Management
Emergency management in case of nuclear or radiological events associated with
radionuclide releases comprises acute disaster management as well as preventive
and long-term rehabilitation management. Depending on national regulations, both
areas can be organized strictly separated or closely connected; however, they are
united by two fundamental safety goals:
1. Prevention of severe deterministic health effects in the population, emergency
crews and auxiliary teams
2. Minimization of collective and individual risks of stochastic health effects on the
basis of the principle of proportionality
Because scientifically supported “hard” threshold levels for stochastic effects are
lacking, especially the second objective has been the subject of various consider-
ations and interpretations. For this reason, there are different concepts for planning
and implementing emergency management measures in the international literature
that have developed historically and are being in use in different countries.
The principles of radiation protection currently being valid require compliance
with the following regulations, pertaining to each individual event and to the
planned measures, as individual measures and in totality:
• Justification—All positive and negative aspects must be taken into account,
i.e. the reduction of the radiation-induced health risk aimed at on the one
hand, and on the other hand further health and societal aspects, such as health
risks potentially caused by the measures, direct and indirect costs of a measure,
public acceptance of a measure, etc.
• Optimization—Taking account of the safety goals as well as the prevailing
constraints, such as the availability of resources
• Proportionality—The radiation risk after the measures should be kept “as low as
reasonably achievable” (ALARA), accounting also for the impact of the inter-
vention on personal life
20.3.2 Distinction of Accident Phases from the Emergency
Management Point of View
Precondition for decisions about emergency measures is the diagnosis of the
existing and the prognosis of the future development of the radiological situation.
In case of accidental releases of radioactivity into the air, both are essentially
determined by the type and quantity of the released radionuclides and the
