TITLE:
International Recommendations on Calculation of Absorbed Dose in Biota: A Comprehensive Revue
AUTHORS:
Wagner de S. Pereira, Alphonse Kelecom
KEYWORDS:
Biota, Absorbed Dose, Radioprotection, International Recommendations
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Environmental Protection,
Vol.5 No.9,
June
19,
2014
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.