ECORAD 2004 ARCHIVES

Organized by Institut de Radioprotection et de Sûreté Nucléaire (IRSN)

With the collaboration of :

Conference Objectives:

Under strong social pressure driven by current environmental concerns, all environmentalists are called to construct scientific knowledge, concepts and principles suitable to ensure acceptable mastering of ecological risk. Environment Protection against radioactivity is certainly the new challenge for radioecology. Originally, radioecology has evolved with the primary goal of assessing the impact of radioactivity on man, and as such was focused on transfer to man through the environment. Now, following a trend that is already underway for other toxicants, the environment itself is also considered as a target requiring protection. As compared to the past, this new focus of radioecology is even more “science demanding”, particularly for basic understanding in biology and ecology. In addition to the knowledge on acute effects of high “doses” of radioactivity on small human critical groups, it is needed to know what happens to large ecosystems when loaded with small, but long-lasting, amounts of radiotoxicants. In addition to “simple” direct transfer, it is needed to take into account complex interaction processes and cycling that may lead to the redistribution of radionuclides, and eventually to their bioconcentration. In addition to “classical” situations like external irradiation, inhalation and wounding, it is necessary to study more thoroughly the effects of internal contamination following trophic chains. In addition to the most studied physical transfer and dispersion phenomena, it is mandatory to clarify how the many differentiating processes at work in the biosphere are acting on bioavailability, a feature that is overlooked in the current homogeneous approach of simplistic models. For all these reasons, today’s radioecology has to deepen its roots in the main stream of environment protection and the most advanced, or actively evolving, associated set of sciences. Practical implications of radioecology are huge. International organisations are already thinking of future regulations. It is hence of paramount importance to ground a strong scientific basis such as to avoid the development of inappropriate regulations.

This congress will therefore be devoted to reviewing the state of art on all aspects of radioactivity interactions with the environment and to promoting innovative research approaches.

In following its predecessor event, ECORAD 2004 will be a science-oriented congress. It will offer a meeting place for fruitful exchanges across the radioecology community and all environmental specialists sharing the same concerns. Regulators, stakeholders and all users of radioecology are welcome.

Conference location:

The conference will be held at the International Congress Center at Aix-en-Provence, France. 6 to 10 of september 2004

Conference Secretariat: (For conference correspondance, registration, logistics, general informations.)

Name (s) and address
Jean-Claude BARESCUT
Chef du département de protection de l'environnement
IRSN/DPRE
BP17 92262 FONTENAY-AUX-ROSES CEDEX FRANCE