Remediation strategies for sustainable development of contaminated environments - a need for an integrated approach

The risk of radiation exposures can result from different nuclear but also non-nuclear origins such as routine or accidental releases during operation of nuclear power plants, releases due to war actions, industrial production and manufacturing, mining and milling activities as well as nuclear weapons' production and testing resulting in increased natural or artificial radioactivity. In the consequence of releases of radionuclides into the environment, efforts have been made to assess and reduce their impact on human health and more recently on biota in the most effective way. Countermeasures for a variety of radionuclides have been developed and tested and finally implemented in contaminated areas to reduce the transfer of radionuclides in the ecosystems, and especially in the food chain to humans, and to reduce the direct radiation and thus exposures to humans and biota. However, especially in regards to the long-term, which will require the involvement of local stakeholders and the local population into the post-release decision making process, few attempts have been made in the past to consider a more holistic approach taking into account not only the effectiveness of the countermeasure itself but also its environmental and social-economic side effects as well as some ethical aspects. Examples of different efforts in this field are presented. (authors)