Development and application of random walk model of atmospheric diffusion in emergency response of nuclear accidents

Plume concentration prediction is one of the main contents of radioactive consequence assessment for early emergency to nuclear accidents. This paper describes random characteristics of atmospheric diffusion itself, introduces random walk model of atmospheric diffusion (Random Walk), and compare with Lagrangian puff model (RIMPUFF) in the nuclear emergency decision support system (RODOS) developed by European Community for verification. The results show the concentrations calculated by the two models are quite close except that plume area calculated by Random Walk is a little smaller than that by RIMPUFF. The random walk model for atmospheric diffusion can simulate the atmospheric diffusion in case of nuclear accidents and provide more actual information for early emergency and consequence assessment as one atmospheric diffusion module of the nuclear emergency decision support system. (authors)