Description

The presence of any repository-derived contaminants in environmental media other than drinking water, foodstuffs, drugs or non-food products, i.e. soil, water, sediment and air, 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

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.

Concentrations in environmental media are used to assess the impact of any repository-derived contaminants in the biosphere on non-human biota, and to assess the external exposure and inhalation routes for humans (for example from the inhalation of radon and radon progeny from the decay of natural and/or repository-derived uranium, thorium and radium). Concentrations in environmental media are also usually required to determine the contaminant concentrations in food. Some media might attain higher concentrations than their surroundings because of natural processes such as bioaccumulation or evaporation of water. Moreover, human practices such as watering of gardens might lead to higher concentrations or accumulation of contaminants.

2000 List

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

3.3.02

Related References