Overview of international frameworks for deriving benchmarks for environmental protection

A framework for the protection of humans has been in existence for a very long time. Protection of the environment, however, has only recently begun to be addressed in a structured manner In the past, it was generally accepted that if humans were adequately protected, then “other living things are also likely to be sufficiently protected”. The need for a system able to demonstrate that the environment is adequately protected from the effects of radioactive substances has been recognised by international organisations and the scientific community. As a result, there has been considerable international and national effort on this issue over the last decade with environmental protection now being referred to in the IAEA Fundamental Safety Principles as well as in the Recommendations of ICRP. The frameworks developed by different international organisations (UNSCEAR, IAEA, ICRP) or under EURATOM projects for the protection of the environment from radioactive substances are summarized and their methodology to derive and apply endpoints of protection are briefly described. There is no international agreement on numerical limits for environmental protection and how they are derived for radioactive substances.