Summary of the CEC/USDOE workshop on uncertainty analysis

There is uncertainty in all aspects of assessing the consequences of accidental releases of radioactive material, from understanding and describing the environmental and biological transfer processes to modeling emergency response. The need for an exchange of views and a comparison of approaches between the diverse disciplines led to the organization of a CEC/USDOE Workshop on Uncertainty Analysis held in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in November 1989. The workshop brought together specialists in a number of disciplines, including those expert in the mathematics and statistics of uncertainty analysis, in expert judgment elicitation and evaluation, and in all aspects of assessing the radiological and environmental consequences of accidental releases of radioactive material. In addition, there was participation from users of the output of accident consequences assessment in decision making and/or regulatory frameworks. The main conclusions that emerged from the workshop are summarized in this paper. These are discussed in the context of three different types of accident consequence assessment: probabilistic assessments of accident consequences undertaken as inputs to risk analyses of nuclear installations, assessments of accident consequences in real time to provide inputs to decisions on the introduction of countermeasures, and the reconstruction of doses and risks resulting form past releases ofmore » radioactive material.« less