Risk methodology for geologic disposal of radioactive waste: asymptotic properties of the environmental transport model

The Environmental Transport Model is a compartmental model developed to represent the surface movement of radionuclides. The purpose of the present study is to investigate the asymptotic behavior of the model and to acquire insight with respect to such behavior and the variables which influence it. For four variations of a hypothetical river receiving a radionuclide discharge, the following properties are considered: predicted asymptotic values for environmental radionuclide concentrations and time required for environmental radionuclide concentrations to reach 90% of their predicted asymptotic values. Independent variables of two types are used to define each variation of the river: variables which define physical properties of the river system (e.g., soil depth, river discharge and sediment resuspension) and variables which summarize radionuclide properties (i.e., distribution coefficients). Sensitivity analysis techniques based on stepwise regression are used to determine the dominant variables influencing the behavior of the model. This work constitutes part of a project at Sandia National Laboratories funded by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to develop a methodology to assess the risk associated with geologic disposal of radioactive waste