VIII. The presentation of data

From Intamap

VIII. The presentation of data

The presentation of radiological data basically has to high-lightning all relevant information at a glance. The most important informations are:

• are any areas effected?
• which areas are effected?
• what are the countermeasures to be applied?

Secondly, only the minimum amout on information should be shown, allowing to concentrate on an easy comprehensible contents. Furthermore it is important to use standardised presentations which should be accepted by different organisations in different countries to avoid any kind of misunderstanding. For the presentation of data on a map the basic parameters are the definitions of the scaling and the colors. The scaling can be defined as the numbers of the levels and for each level the corresponding absolute value. Finally the different colours of the individual levels have to be specified.

Of most importance it is to distinguish unambiguously between:

• countermeasure related presentations;
• and not countermeasure related presentations.

Countermeasure related presentation of data

In the case of the presentation of measured or calculated data in maps, high-lightning the neccessity of countermeasures is affordable. In addition the same presentation scheme should be used for all type of countermeasures which are: sheltering, intake of stable Iodine, evacuation and ban on foodstuff / feed.

In table 4 the three different types of countermeasures are listed together with their related intervention levels which are expressed in effective dose.

Not Countermeasure related presentations of data

Not countermeasure-related presentations are typically used to show measured data.

In the case of the presentation of measured data a good visibility of differences in the obtained results are important. Therefore also for not countermeasure-related presentations a color scheme has been proposed in IMIS. The criteria for the choice of colors are:

• optimal visibility and diversity of the colours on TFT, CRT and beamer
• good results on different types of printers including telefax

Part of the standardised presentation scheme are colors and levels. All systems generating map in IMIS (like PARK, RODOS, IMIS and the software used in the GDR network) use 8 levels. Depending on the type of map, predefined sets of levels are agreed.

The Operation Intervention Levels (OILs)

The IAEA has defined safety standards relating to emergency preparedness and Response which are continuously updated and where necessary expanded. One of the new safety standards in the area of emergency preparedness and response are the so called „Criteria for Use in Planning Response to Nuclear and Radiological Emergencies“, which has been released on the 2006-08-18.

This draft has been developed due to the experience from the response to past emergencies which has clearly shown that an internationally accepted system of guidance is needed for implementing consistent protective actions in all phases of a radiation emergency. The objectives of this draft were developed with the understanding that it needs to be as simple as possible and as complex as neccessary. Part of this draft is the introduction of so called operational quantities. One of them are the Operation Intervention Levels (OILs) which are calculated levels, measured by instruments in the field. OILs are typically expressed in terms of dose rate instead of dose. Dose rate is typically measured by gamma dose rate detectors like Geiger-Mueller counters. All Gamma dose rate networks report the results obtained in units of ambient gamma dose rate equivalent [Sv/h] or dose rate [Gy/h]. The dose (in units of Sv or Gy) can be calculated from the dose rate by integration over a specific time. But integration over the time is a non trivial procedure since one has to introduce estimations about the period of integration, etc.. Typically complex decision support systems like PARK and RODOS are used to do these calculations.

Therefore the most importanted advantage of OILs is that they only depend on measured data. The decision maker just needs to look at map, the best would be it is colored due to the countermeasure-related presentation scheme, and it becomes obvious immediately, if the countermeasures already taken depending on the output of PARK or RODOS correspond to the real situation provided by the new set of measured data.

One restriction of the actual IAEA draft is, that there are no values specified defined in combination with specific kinds of countermeasures. In the actual version of the german catalogue of countermeasures from september 2006 specific dose rate ranges are defined in relation with different types of countermeasures.

		Upper
	Disaster response measures	2000
=====Precautionary radiation protection measures=====

Table 5 Operational Intervention Levels for ambient dose rate

Back to WP5 discussion.