Radionuclide releases and transport through the unsaturated zone

Romania has become the 30th nuclear power plant operating country since 1996. The operation of Cernavoda Nuclear Power Plant (CNPP) will generate, besides the spent fuel, the large amounts of low and intermediate level waste (LILW). These radioactive wastes must be managed and disposed of in an environmentally safe manner. As a result, the necessity of the selection of the appropriate waste disposal system, as well as the development of the safety assessment methodology are obvious. The developed safety assessment methodology, has the performance prediction of Romanian repository for an object. In consideration of Romanian selected site specific conditions - a semi-arid region with a large depth of the unsaturated zone - the source term model and unsaturated zone flow and transport are considered the most important modules of the methodology. This paper presents the results of the source term evaluation and the development of the site-specific conceptual model for unsaturated zone and radionuclide transport simulation for low and intermediate level waste Romanian repository. (author)