Arctic Council Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme Plans and Methodologies for the 2023 Assessment of Radioactivity in the Arctic - 22076

The Arctic Council was established in 1996 through the Ottawa Declaration to promote 'cooperation, coordination and interaction among Arctic States, Arctic Indigenous peoples and other Arctic inhabitants on common Arctic issues'. The Arctic member states are Canada, the Kingdom of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, The Russian Federation, Sweden, and the United States. The Arctic Council also includes Permanent Participants through the Indigenous Peoples Secretariat of the Arctic Council. Permanent Participants include the Aleut International Association, Arctic Athabaskan Council, Gwich'in International Council, Inuit Circumpolar Council, Russian Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North, and the Saami Council. There are currently six working groups in the Arctic Council including the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP). AMAP is primarily focused on 'measuring and monitoring pollutants and climate change effects on ecosystems and human health in the Arctic'. The Radioactivity Expert Group under AMAP assesses monitoring data and issues connected to radioactivity and its impact on the Arctic environment and its inhabitants. The expert group has periodically published assessment reports since 1997, with the most recent report published in 2016: AMAP Assessment 2015: Radioactivity in the Arctic. The 2015 assessment report focused on sources of contamination to and in the Arctic and possible effects of climate change, radioactive waste and decommissioning, monitoring of radioactivity in the Arctic (marine, terrestrial, and atmospheric), the impact of the Fukushima Daiichi accident, the potential for future accidents, and naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORM). The Radioactivity Expert Group is currently working on an updated assessment for 2023, which will include chapters on sources of radioactive contamination, naturally occurring radionuclides (NORs), radioactive waste and decommissioning, monitoring of radioactivity in the Arctic, and the effects of climate change on radioactivity in the Arctic. The 2023 assessment is based on updated time series as well as new investigations and developments since 2015. The region of interest is the same as that studied in the 2015 assessment report. In terms of current and potential sources of radioactive contamination, the working group evaluated data on nuclear weapons testing fallout, discharges from European nuclear fuel reprocessing facilities, dumped and sunken nuclear sources in the Barents and Kara Seas, military activities from the 1960's in Greenland, and traces from the Fukushima Daiichi accident and nuclear facilities and vessels operating in or near the Arctic. The assessment of NORs focuses on sources from industrial activities such as mining and milling, oil and gas, geothermal energy production, long-range transport of NORs to the Arctic, radiological impact on biota and human health, and stakeholder outreach within the Arctic communities. The radioactive waste and decommissioning chapter provides updates on previous reports on radioactive waste storage at Andreeva and Gremikha, the status of the Lepse floating nuclear storage facility in Russia, and the status of a European Union feasibility study for the safe and secure management and or disposal of sunken and dumped radioactive objects in the Arctic. The monitoring chapter provides updates on Arctic time series from the marine, terrestrial, and atmospheric environments and includes several new datasets from selected areas. The 2023 assessment also includes a chapter on the potential impact of climate change on anthropogenic and naturally occurring radioactivity in the Arctic. Overall, this paper focuses on the plans and methodologies for the 2023 AMAP assessment of radioactivity in the Arctic. (authors)