##### F1-TM-47471

## International Atomic Energy Agency Technical Meeting for the Results of the Nuclear Instrumentation Laboratory Network's Intercomparison Exercise

### 10-14 March 2014 Vienna, Austria

#### ANNOUNCEMENT

##### BACKGROUND

The Nuclear Science and Instrumentation Laboratory (IAEA Division of Physical and Chemical Sciences within the Department of Nuclear Sciences and Applications) fosters supporting the IAEA Member States to effectively operate and maintain nuclear instruments appropriate to their nuclear activities, including the application of nuclear spectrometry techniques in different fields. In recent years, attention has been paid to the need of creating capabilities to support Member States in introducing the use of in-situ measurement techniques to support environmental studies.

Radiologically impacted sites exist all over the world, the result of past activities that were never subject to regulatory control or that were regulated, but not in accordance with prevailing international standards including those formulated by the IAEA. Radiologically impacted sites may have also resulted from nuclear and/or radiological accidents. These sites can lead to the exposure of members of the public to ionizing radiation which may result in negative health effects in the exposed population.

To achieve a comprehensive characterization of environmental problems, many factors have to be taken into account and only by designing a proper assessment program including an interdisciplinary approach can a proper interpretation be provided and contribute to solve a particular problem. At different stages of any environmental assessment large amount of data on the nature, concentration and migration pathways of the investigated contaminants of concern is required.

In order to investigate, control and regulate radiologically impacted sites, performing assessments using in-situ techniques can provide a more complete and representative investigation of a site in both a time and cost effective manner. In-situ techniques and other nuclear-related methods have reached a high level of analytical performance and offer certain advantages over other traditional characterization procedures, such as:

- • determination of contaminant concentrations/activities in across a radiologically • determination of contaminant concentrations/activities in across a radiologically impacted site without time-consuming sample collection and preparation procedures.
- • tuning of the contaminant spatial distribution, with immediate real time identification • tuning of the contaminant spatial distribution, with immediate real time identification of areas of interest (‘hot-spot’ areas), allowing further investigation of these areas with a better spatial resolution sampling.
- • reduction for the investigation of all the stages of an assessment, and remediation • reduction for the investigation of all the stages of an assessment, and remediation

process. Larger size of the effectively inspected sample contributes to a drastic reduction of the time required for measurements and results in more representative results.

- • of sampling strategies for more accurate laboratory analysis. • of sampling strategies for more accurate laboratory analysis.