Climate evolution in the long-term safety assessment of surface and geological disposal facilities for radioactive waste in Belgium

In order to protect man and the environment, long-lasting, passive solutions are needed for the different categories of radioactive waste. In Belgium, it has been decided that Category A waste (low and intermediate level short-lived waste) will be disposed in a near-surface facility. The reference solution for the disposal of Category B and C wastes (high-level and other long-lived radioactive waste) is a deep geological repository. In both cases, the long-term safety of a given disposal facility is evaluated. Different scenarios and assessment cases are developed illustrating the range of possibilities for the evolution and performance of a disposal system without trying to predict its precise behaviour. Within these scenarios, the evolution of the climate will play a major role. This paper describes the fundamentals of the long-term safety assessment of waste disposal facilities in Belgium. It furthermore describes future climate evolution based on a literature review, and evaluates how climate predictions can be treated in safety assessment studies for the long-term safety of disposal facilities.