Development of a methodology for the safety assessment of near surface disposal facilities for radioactive waste

The Project on the Environmental Radiological Impact in CIEMAT is developing, for the Spanish regulatory body Consejo de Seguridad Nuclear (CSN), a methodology for the Safety Assessment of near surface disposal facilities. This method has been developed incorporating some elements developed through the participation in the IAEA's ISAM Programme (Improving Long Term Safety Assessment Methodologies for Near Surface Radioactive Waste Disposal Facilities). The first step of the approach is the consideration of the assessment context, including the purpose of the assessment, the end-Points, philosophy, disposal system, source term and temporal scales as well as the hypothesis about the critical group. Once the context has been established, and considering the peculiarities of the system, an specific list of features, events and processes (FEPs) is produced. These will be incorporated into the assessment scenarios. The set of scenarios will be represented in the conceptual and mathematical models. By the use of mathematical codes, calculations are performed to obtain results (i.e. in terms of doses) to be analysed and compared against the criteria. The methodology is being tested by the application to an hypothetical engineered disposal system based on an exercise within the ISAM Programme, and will finally be applied to the Spanish case. (author)