Abstract
Abstract
The monitoring program for measurements in intense operation mode has been revised recently by a working group at the Federal Ministry for Environment, Nature Conservation and Reactor Safety (BMU). The major issues of the revision are reported in this contribution. Measurements in intense operation must be appropriate for fast assessment of the radiological situation, for estimating the dose to the population and for decisions on countermeasures to minimize the dose. In order to meet these requirements the structure of the measurement program in intense operation mode was divided into three phases when different exposition paths are relevant: before and during dispersion of radioactive material, immediately after dispersion of radioactive material has ended and a late phase when contamination values have decreased in different environmental media. For each of these phases a special measurement program was defined that is tailored to achieve the above mentioned objectives. Minimum detectable activity concentrations were introduced similar to the measurement program in routine operation mode. They follow the intervention levels in the catalogue of countermeasures and maximum permitted values given by the European Union (EU) for food and animal feed. The minimum detectable activity concentrations were defined such that the detection of 1/10 of the intervention levels for countermeasures is ensured.