International Recommendations on Calculation of Absorbed Dose in Biota: A Comprehensive Revue

Wagner de S. Pereira, Alphonse Kelecom

Laboratory of Radiobiology and Radiometry Pedro Lopes dos Santos (LARARA-PLS), Group of Environmental Themes Assessment (GETA), Universidade Federal Fluminense (UFF), Niterói, Brazil.
Multidisciplinary Group of Radio Protection (GMR), Servi?o de Radioprote??o, Unidade de Tratamento de Minério, Indústrias Nucleares do Brasil, Caldas, Brazil.

DOI: 10.4236/jep.2014.59077                

Abstract

Since the early times, radioprotection has been focused on the human being. Currently this approach has changed, being now also necessary to take care of the protection of the environment from unwanted effects of ionizing radiation. To this end, several institutions (UNSCEAR, ICRP, IAEA, DOE, ACRP) and consortia of institutions (FASSET, ERICA) have established procedures in order to protect the biota of such effects. Developed procedures are based on the calculation of the absorbed dose in biota (ICRP, DOE, IAEA), or on environmental risk assessment―ERA (DOE, ACRP, FASSET, ERICA); but even in this latter approach the parameters used are related to the absorbed doses in biota. The calculation of dose is the standard procedure in human radioprotection, and this points such an approach as the most interesting for providing a convergence between human and nonhuman (= biota) radioprotections. On the other hand, the ERA approach is easier to apply, because this methodology is used in several countries for non-radioactive contamination assessments. Since the world radioprotection system follows a number of institutions (UNSCEAR, ICRP, IAEA and regulatory institutions of member countries) that use dose calculation, this appears to be the way for biota radioprotection. We here review and comment the evolution of the concepts and approaches of the recommendations for radioprotection of non-human biota.

Keywords

Biota, Absorbed Dose, Radioprotection, International Recommendations

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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