4. Monitoring Systems and Methods

Monitoring programs are designed in part to enable decision makers to take actions following a nuclear power plant accident or other emergency involving a potential radioactive release to protect the public and the environment. As these decisions rely on modeling, data, and analyses, choices about monitoring systems and measurement and collection procedures are important. It is essential to have the systems, methods, and expertise to conduct the monitoring required of the different environmental media at each phase following the accident. This Section focuses on the equipment and methods that can be employed to gather radiological and supporting information within monitoring programs discussed in Section 3. The terms “monitoring system” and “detection system” are used to recognize that in many instances a radiation detector will be combined with other electronics that supply, store, and transmit supporting information correlated with the radiation measurement. The supporting information includes the time, location, characteristics of atmospheric conditions, and other metadata. The selection of equipment and systems to use during a response to an emergency will change during the course of the emergency and in the postemergency existing exposure situation. As discussed in Section 3, the measurement methods used and the amount of data to be collected depend on the urgency of the decisions and the availability of resources. Other considerations are which media pose the greatest risk and which radionuclides are of greatest concern at that phase. In the early phase of an emergency, decisions may need to be made to avoid immediate danger to life or health. Often these initial decisions will be made with information from limited radiological measurements because of the quantity, sensitivity, or positioning of the equipment that was readily available. After the emergency has passed, interest in long-term protective actions and remediation will require precise and extensive measurements, and more personnel and equipment can be arranged to carry out the measurements. Consider two examples: