Laura Limer and Russell Walke participated in the Third International Conference on Radioecology and Environmental Radioactivity (ICRER) held in Barcelona, from the 7ᵗʰ to 12ᵗʰ of September 2014. The conference was promoted and organised by IRSN and the NRPA and there were in the region of 450 participants. A wide range of issues concerning environmental radioactivity were discussed, with sessions on: multi-stressors and effects; risk; emergency preparedness; speciation and transfer; waste; NORM; environmental protection; extreme environments; monitoring and metrology; and nuclear legacy.
There was also a day-long session on Fukushima, describing research that has been undertaken since the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, in particular with respect to the environmental transfer and effects of the radionuclides released.
Quintessa presented two oral papers and one poster paper, supported by the Swedish Radiation Safety Authority (SSM). Russell Walke spoke about comparisons between complex and more stylised approaches to representing the biosphere in long-term performance assessment studies, drawing on review of assessments of a proposed geological repository for spent nuclear fuel at Forsmark in Sweden. Laura Limer spoke about the application of two models of the dynamics of C-14 in soils, plants and the atmosphere to data from a nuclear fuel reprocessing plant. Laura also contributed to a poster concerning uncertainties in soil-plant interactions in long-term dose assessment models.
The extended abstracts for these presentations are available for download (biosphere modelling, C-14, soil-plant interactions) and more information is available from the conference website.