CURRENT STATUS OF THE IAEA'S NET ENABLED WASTE MANAGEMENT DATABASE

The International Atomic Energy Agency's Net Enabled Waste Management Database (NEWMDB) contains information on national radioactive waste management programs and organizations, plans and activities, relevant laws and regulations, policies and radioactive waste inventories. The NEWMDB, which was launched on the Internet July 6, 2001, is the successor to the Agency's Waste Management Database (WMDB), which was in use during the 1990's. The NEWMDB's first data collection cycle took place from July 2001 to March 2002. Agency Member State participation in the first data collection cycle was low--only 22 submissions were received. However, the first data collection cycle demonstrated that: the NEWMDB could be used to collect information on national radioactive waste management programs and radioactive waste inventories annually, the NEWMDB data can support the routine reporting of status and trends in radioactive waste management based on quantitative data, the NEWMDB can support the compilation of a consolidated, international radioactive waste inventory based on a unified waste classification scheme, the data needed to compute an indicator of sustainable development for radioactive waste management are available at the national level, NEWMDB data can be used to assess the development and implementation of national systems for radioactive waste management, and the NEWMDB can support the reporting requirements of the Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management. Agency Member States that had not made data submissions in the first cycle were asked to submit data during an extension of the first cycle (July 2002--January 2003). When this paper was written, the Agency had conducted two of three international workshops to provide training for future NEWMDB data collection cycles and to compile lessons learned for the first data collection cycle. A third workshop was scheduled for January 2003. This paper provides an overview of the status of NEWMDB data collection with a focus on NEWMDB reports, which are publicly available cost free