Finding a criterion for site evaluation by weighting radiological, meteorological and demographic data

The general problem of compatibility between given installations and their site, as well as more specific problems such as those associated with decisions to be taken in regard to demographic equilibrium in the environment, logically involve finding quantitative or at any rate semiquantitative criteria that will enable selection to be made under the least subjective conditions possible. Since the air is frequently the principal primary vector of effluents, especially in the case of an accident, atmospheric discharges are considered first separately. As the task is to find a ''site security index'' integrating the meteorological and demographic data with radiological data relating to the potential sources and the consequences of contamination, the authors first consider the possibility of using the man.rem concept, which has the advantage of possessing the dimension of a collective dose. In view of the objections that have been raised, particularly in connection with the controversy over the existence of a threshold for the dose-equivalent effect relation, a number of other practices are described and discussed. The conclusions are complex and subject to revision. Several definitions of site security indices can be identified and, pending the final decision stage, actually put into use, in conjunction with specific maps or graphs serving to reveal potentially important features which might be obscured by excessive integrations or summations