Description
The migration of contaminants from the repository as a direct result of human actions.
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.
This might result from processes such as drilling into or excavation of the repository (FEPs 1.4.5 and 1.4.6).
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.
The pathways by which radionuclides and other contaminants might leave the repository, the fluxes attained, and their bioavailability could be influenced by human-action-mediated transport. Human-action-mediated migration would operate in concert with other migration mechanisms (water-mediated migration, gas-mediated migration or solid-mediated migration).
Potentially human actions might result in transport of radionuclides and other contaminants directly from the waste, if the human actions physically compromise waste packages. Alternatively, the human actions may transport solid components of the EBS, other engineered components (e.g. grouts), adjacent rock, or fluids contained within the EBS and geosphere (such as water, non-aqueous liquids or gases). If these solid and fluid phases have previously been contaminated by radionuclides or other contaminants originating in the wastes, then such human actions could also transport the contaminants.
2000 List
A reference to the related FEP(s) within the 2000 NEA IFEP List.
Related References
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Seitz R, Kumano Y, Bailey L, Markly C, Andersson E and Thomas B (), Considerations Related to Human Intrusion in the Context of Disposal of Radioactive Waste – The IAEA HIDRA Project, Proceedings of the WM2014 Conference, March 2-6, 2014, Phoenix, Arizona, USA, 11, http://www.wmsym.org/archives/2014/papers/14101.pdf
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NEA (), Future Human Actions at Disposal Sites, A Report of the NEA Working Group on Assessment of Future Human Actions at Radioactive Waste Disposal Sites, Nuclear Energy Agency/Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, ISBN 92-64-14372-6, https://www.oecd-nea.org/rwm/reports/1995/nea6431-human-actions.pdf
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Smith G M, Molinero J, Delos A, Valls A, Conesa A, Smith K, Hjerpe T (), Human intruder dose assessment for deep geological disposal, Posiva Working Report 2013-23, Posiva Oy, Finland, http://www.posiva.fi/files/3301/WR_2013-23.pdf
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SKB (), Handling of future human actions in the safety assessment SR-PSU, SKB Technical Report TR-14-08, Svensk Kärnbränslehantering AB, http://www.skb.com/publication/2478137/TR-14-08.pdf