Meteorology and Wind Energy Department annual progress report 1 january - 31 december 1989

The BER-3 Project of the emergency preparedness programme (BER) of the Nordic Co-operation Organisation (NKS) organised a decision conference to address the following objectives.
1. To achieve a common understanding between decision makers and local government officials on the one hand and the radiation protection community on the other of the issues that arise in decisions in the aftermath of a major nuclear accident.
2. To identify issues which need to be considered in preparing guidance on intervention levels.
3. To explore the use of decision conferencing as a format for major decision making.
To achieve these objectives the participants were invited to consider a scenario of a hypothetical radiation accident. The scenario assumed that appropriate early protective actions (sheltering, issuing of iodine tablets, etc.) had been taken and
that the conference was meeting some eight days into the accident to consider medium and longer term protective actions, particularly the need for relocation of certain areas. By the end of the conference, considerable consensus on the general form of the strategy had emerged. Moreover, there was a better understanding of the evaluation criteria against which such a strategy needed to be developed. Many felt that it was important to retain flexibility in the strategy of protective actions, even if this increased the uncertainty for the affected population, who would not know exactly what would be done for several months. This emphasised even more the need for good communication and understandable presentations of the adopted strategy. All felt that more research and advice is needed on the psychological effects of such accidents and the effects of protective actions. It was felt that the exercise had illustrated the problems inherent in radiation emergencies. However, a different situation with larger populations could have led to different results. It was agreed that the exercise had been useful in meeting the need to think about the issues before an accident happens. On the general matter of intervention levels, it was suggested that guidance should not constrain the authorities into doing something which might not be appropriate to the particular circumstances of an accident. It needed to recognise, for instance, that one can evacuate small numbers of people but not large cities.