Occupational exposure evolution in Spanish NPP's

After extremes fluctuations in the early 1980's, the evolution in occupational collective dose in the operating nuclear power plants in Spain seems to be stabilizing and lightly decreasing in the last years, within the same range of the average level of the OECD countries. It is clear that only a well structured, systematic and practical approach to optimization of protection, as a strict selection process and as a 'state of thinking', ensures that no important aspects are overlooked and the appropriate decisions are taken to perform the different tasks in conditions to achieve the optimum level of exposure. During the last decade we can affirm that a progressive development of ALARA culture is having a positive influence in Spanish PWR and BOOR. In this presentation the main indicators of the occupational dose trends to assess the present development level of this criterion, the collective dose per reactor, the task related collective dose, individual doses, etc. are reviewed and the key elements that have shown a clear effectiveness to improve the practical application of it, organisational modifications, increasing commitment, global strategies to reduce the source term, increasing presence of robots, etc. are discussed. (author)