Description

The climatic responses due to geological changes such as orogeny or volcanic activity caused by plate tectonics. Responses could be short-term (months to years), such as atmospheric cooling caused by volcanic eruptions, or long-term, such as the impact on atmospheric circulation caused by orogeny.

Category

Categorisation as a Feature, Event and/or Process.

  • Features are physical components of the disposal system and environment being assessed. Examples include waste packaging, backfill, surface soils. Features typically interact with one another via processes and in some cases events.
  • Events are dynamic interactions among features that occur over time periods that are short compared to the safety assessment timeframe such as a gas explosion or meteorite impact.
  • "Processes" are issues or dynamic interactions among features that generally occur over a significant proportion of the safety assessment timeframe and may occur over the whole of this timeframe. Events and processes may be coupled to one another (i.e. may influence one another).

The classification of a FEP as an event or process depends upon the assessment context, because the classification is undertaken with reference to an assessment timeframe. In this generic IFEP List, many IFEPs are classified as both Events and Processes; users will need to decide which of these classifications is relevant to their context and its timeframes.

  • Event
  • Process

Comments

The “Comments” field, when present, contains any additional explanation of the IFEP, beyond that implicit in the FEP's description and provided in the “Relevance to Performance and Safety” field. This additional explanation may include, where appropriate, the IFEPs characteristics, the circumstances under which it might be relevant and its relationship to other (especially similar) IFEPs.

FEP 1.2.14 concerns geological impacts on climate, which may be global or local. In contrast FEP 1.3.1 (Global climate change) covers global climate change due to non-tectonic processes, such as changes in solar insolation or anthropogenic CO₂ emissions. FEP 1.3.2 (Regional and local climate change) covers local climate change due to non-tectonic factors, such as weathering and erosion influencing the local topography and hence local atmospheric circulation, anthropogenic activity or the action of other living organisms.

Relevance to Performance and Safety

The “Relevance to Performance and Safety” field contains an explanation of how the IFEP might influence the performance and safety of the disposal system under consideration through its impact on the evolution of the repository system and on the release, migration and/or uptake of repository-derived contaminants.

Climatic responses to geological changes could impact upon repository performance and safety by: 1) influencing groundwater fluxes and patterns of groundwater flow in and/or around a repository; 2) influencing the chemistry of the groundwater in and/or around the repository; and 3) influencing the nature and spatial distribution of receptors that could be impacted by any radionuclides or other contaminants that are transported from the repository.

Effects on the groundwater flow regime in and / or around a repository could arise from changes in the geographical distribution and rate of recharge. Changes in the flow regime could influence the transport of radionuclides and other contaminants from the repository to the locations of groundwater discharge. Changes in recharge could also lead to changes in the chemical conditions in and / or around the repository (e.g. higher recharge leading to fresh, oxidising, meteoric water penetrating to greater depth). Changes in temperature and/or the magnitude and kind of precipitation (i.e. rain or snow) could also influence the rates of erosion or sediment deposition, which could affect the depth of the repository below the surface in the long term. Changes in erosion/sedimentation and development/drying out of surface water bodies (i.e. lakes) all have the potential to influence mechanical loading of a repository

2000 List

A reference to the related FEP(s) within the 2000 NEA IFEP List.

Not explicitly mentioned

Related References