Wide area monitoring study

Environmental sampling can be used to complement the safeguarding of nuclear material, especially in the detection of undeclared nuclear activities. Routine monitoring of nuclear installations has provided valuable information about the fate of key signature materials within different environmental settings. The approach collates information regarding the generation of individual radiochemical signatures within different nuclear processes, the potential for release of these signatures to the environment and, the chemical form and mobility of the signatures in environmental media along which the material could migrate. Meteorological, geological and hydrological information is used to determine where to sample, what to sample, and how often to sample to provide the greatest likelihood for detection. Multiple strategies can be used to implement wide area monitoring for safeguards purposes. The most complex, and expensive of these, involves establishing extensive networks of fixed location sampling sites. The sites would be operated continuously, and would be instrumented with automated sampling, analysis, and communication equipment to relay information regarding potential anomalies to control centers in near-real time. Alternative strategies can be used to supplement fixed location monitoring equipment, especially in regions that cannot support (financially or logistically) the fixed stations. Through combinations of these various strategies, using a variety of environmental media to monitor a region, we believe that a competent network, one with a quantifiable probability for detecting undeclared nuclear activities, can be designed. While this approach cannot and should not replace other inspection and monitoring activities, it can potentially contribute valuable information to an international safeguards system. (author)