Westlakes Radioecology Group
Westlakes Scientific Consulting contributes significantly to the advancement of the scientific field of radioecology, developing measurement techniques and models for radionuclide interactions with the environment. The WSC Radioecology group is an active community of researchers dedicated to this goal, strongly focussed on the development of the international system for protection of ecosystems from the efects of ionising radiation.
Overview
The Group has actively developed within Westlakes a new biokinetic modelling research area to study the uptake and turnover of radionuclides by marine organisms under non-equilibrium conditions. A laboratory-based experimental programme is being carried out to study the uptake of trace radionuclides in live organisms, deriving new kinetic transfer parameters for use in modelling. Novel process-based models have already been developed to represent the uptake and turnover of technetium, plutonium and iodine in lobsters and winkles.
The current focus of the Group's research is to advance new methodology for the assessment of radiation doses to marine biota under non-equilibrium conditions using a dynamic approach and kinetic-allometric parameters. The focus is not only in protecting individuals, but studying the effects of radiation on whole populations and interactions with other manmade and natural stressors. This is a flagship research project that has earned for Westlakes strong support from the NDA, as well as international leadership in the field of ecosystem radiological impact assessment, with twelve peer-reviewed publications to date.
International activities of the group
Westlakes staff are corresponding members of the International Commission on Radiological Protection, involved in Task Groups dedicated to develop the international system of radiological protection for wildlife. The ICRP invited Westlakes to join as a result of participation in three major collaborative EU research projects in this area (FASSET, ERICA and PROTECT), involving more than fifteen major European radiation protection institutions.
A new collaboration between Westlakes and the National Research Centre for Environmental Health, Helmholtz Gemeinschaft, Munich, has been established in order to develop internal dosimetry models for radon respiration in animals and plants, as part of the ongoing work of the Commission.
Westlakes Scientific Consulting senior scientists have been chosen by the International Atomic Energy Agency, to participate in the Environmental Modelling for Radiation Safety (EMRAS) project. WSC staff have been the leading authors of an important biota dosimetry publication in collaboration with the national radiological protection institutions of Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Japan, Lithuania, Russia and the USA. Twenty-one research papers and key IAEA, ICRP and EC reportsave resulted from this and the above work.
In addition WSC participates in an IAEA international collaboration on modelling of naturally occurring radioactive material (NORM), having recently delivered a keynote paper on the subject in the International Conference on Radioecology and Environmental Radioactivity, Bergen, Norway, 16-20 June 2008.
WSC staff have served as invited experts for the EU EURATOM funded PROTECT project (FI6R-036425), attending meetings in Vienna and Oslo to evaluate the different approaches to protection of the environment from ionising radiation and compare them with the approaches used for non-radioactive contaminants.
Internation collaborations are being developed with the Norwegian Radiological Protection Authority (NRPA) and EcoMetrix (Canada).