Approaches for estimating environmental impact from nuclear power plants (NPPs) under normal operation conditions: France. Annex II

Models described in this section come from the CERES platform. The atmospheric dispersion model GASCON was developed by the CEA for the assessment of environmental impact from routine releases. It assumes Gaussian dispersion of pollutants and the model parameters are calibrated for flat terrain without buildings or topographic obstacles. Model uses yearly statistical meteorological data of wind speed and direction for each atmospheric stability class. The riverine dispersion model ABRICOT was developed by the CEA for the release authorization studies. This model can be used for the assessment of environmental impact from the release of radionuclides into rivers. This simplistic model assumes instantaneous dilution of the pollutant in the river (based on the ratio between the river flow rate and the liquid effluent flow rate).