Description
The presence of any repository-derived contaminants in drinking water, foodstuffs or drugs that may be consumed by humans, and associated processes.
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.
- Feature
- 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.
Contaminants may be incorporated into the food chain through contaminated soil, water and air (see for example FEP 5.3.5).
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.
Repository-derived contaminants may be incorporated into the food chain through contaminated soil, water and air. Water used for drinking is particularly important because it can provide a direct pathway of contaminant ingestion, with few delays. However, processes such as bioconcentration, bioaccumulation and biomagnification can increase concentrations of some contaminants in foodstuffs and may result in more significant exposures to particular contaminants.
2000 List
A reference to the related FEP(s) within the 2000 NEA IFEP List.
Related References
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IAEA (), Handbook of Parameter Values for the Prediction of Radionuclide Transfer in Terrestrial and Freshwater Environments, International Atomic Energy Agency Technical Reports Series 472, International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna, ISBN 978–92–0–113009–9, ISSN 0074–1914, 194, http://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/Publications/PDF/trs472_web.pdf
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IAEA (), Sediment Distribution Coefficients and Concentration Factors for Biota in the Marine Environment, Technical Report Series, International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna, Austria, 422, http://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/Publications/PDF/TRS422_web.pdf, 31 March 2004
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IAEA (), Handbook of parameter values for the prediction of radionuclide transfer to wildlife, Technical Reports Series, 479, International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna, Austria, ISBN 978–92–0–100714–8 ISSN 0074–1914, http://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/Publications/PDF/Trs479_web.pdf, 31 May 2014