Inter-comparison of models to estimate radionuclide activity concentrations in non-human biota

Abstract

A number of models have recently been, or are currently being, developed to enable the assessment of radiation doses from ionising radiation to non-human species. A key component of these models is the ability to predict whole-organism activity concentrations in a wide range of wildlife. In this paper, we compare the whole-organism activity concentrations predicted by eight models participating within the IAEA Environmental Modelling for Radiation Safety programme for a range of radionuclides to terrestrial and freshwater organisms. In many instances, there was considerable variation, ranging over orders of magnitude, between the predictions of the different models. Reasons for this variability (including methodology, data source and data availability) are identified and discussed. The active participation of groups responsible for the development of key models within this exercise is a useful step forward in providing the transparency in methodology and data provenance required for models which are either currently being used for regulatory purposes or which may be used in the future. The work reported in this paper, and supported by other findings, demonstrates that the largest contribution to variability between model predictions is the parameterisation of their transfer components. There is a clear need to focus efforts and provide authoritative compilations of those data which are available.

Findings and recommendations from an international comparison of models and approaches for the estimation of radiological exposure to non-human biota

“…The results of this exercise are evaluated in Beresford et al [6]. Subsequently, two model-data comparisons (or scenario applications) were conducted (see IAEA [2] for details):…”

Radiological Risk Assessment to Marine Biota Along Manora Channel Karachi Coast Pakistan

“…Recently, there has been growing international interest in the assessment of doses and risks to biota resulting from exposure to radionuclides from anthropogenic sources [10][11][12]. Several models are now available that enable the assessment of radiological risk to biota [13,14]. One of these is the ERICA Tool [15], which implements the ERICA Integrated Approach [10] developed within the EC 6th Framework Programme.…”

LIETDOS-BIO assessment approach to the environment non-human biota exposure by ionizing radiation

“…This scoring system, which is included in the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) guidelines as a standard method for laboratory assessment, was successfully used as a simple tool for comparison of different international approaches for the assessment of doses to non-human biota [22][23][24][25] (see the references for a description of the participant approaches). As the data considered in this study appear to be lognormally distributed, Z-scoring was performed on logarithmically transformed data for the purposes of comparison, using the following formula:…”