Description

The changes in ecology, e.g. vegetation, animal and plant populations, wetlands, lakes and agricultural areas in response to climate change within the region/locality of the repository.

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.

Ecological responses to climate change (this FEP 1.3.8) may reflect the Hydrological / hydrogeological responses to climate change that are covered by FEP 1.3.7.

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.

Ecological responses to climate change are relevant for repository performance and safety because they affect the nature of the biosphere that could be impacted by any radionuclides or other contaminants that might leave a repository in the future. Climate change will influence the relative importance of aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems among the potential receptors that need to be considered by a safety assessment. Within aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems the nature and proportions of different plants and animals will depend strongly upon climatic factors. Changes in ecosystems due to climate change will also impact upon biological processes by which radionuclides or other contaminants that originate in a repository could be concentrated or dispersed. Interactions between humans and natural ecosystems will also be affected by climate change, with a consequent influence on the potential for humans to be exposed to radionuclides or other contaminants that might leave a repository. For example, the potential for agriculture to occur near a repository, with associated ecosystem changes, will depend upon climatic conditions.

2000 List

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

1.3.08

Related References