The ERICA Tool - suggested revisions
The 6th Framework ERICA project was a joint effort between 15 institutions in seven European countries with the objective ‘‘provide and apply an integrated approach of addressing scientific, managerial and societal issues surrounding environmental effects of ionising contamination at a community level, with emphasis on biota and ecosystems’’. The two major outputs from the project were the delivery of the ERICA Integrated Approach to assessment and the ERICA Tool. The Integrated Approach combined exposure-dose-effect assessment with risk characterisation and managerial considerations. The ERICA Tool is software programme that guides the user through the various steps of the Integrated Approach, keeps records and communicates with a number of purpose-built databases (including the FREDERICA radiation effects database for non-human species). The ERICA Tool and the Integrated Approach are well documented (see Reports and Refereed Papers)
The ERICA Tool is freely available (DOWNLOAD). The ERICA databases describing transfer to wildlife have subsequently been used to initiate the 'Wildlife Transfer Database' used by the ICRP to provide transfer parameters for their Reference Animals and Plants (ICRP Publication 114) and the IAEA to produce a Handbook of Radionuclide Transfer Parameters for Wildlife (in press; see Howard et al. and Yankovich et al.). The ERICA approach to estimating dose rates to organisms was also used by the ICRP in the development of their environmental protection framework (ICRP Publication 108). The ERICA Tool is now widely used and training courses which include its use are available.
The STAR consortium includes a number of the organisations who developed the ERICA Tool. It is intended that the ERICA Tool will form a component of the screening tier tool for conducting combined human and non-human assessments to be developed by STAR. Consequently, the STAR consortium will collaborate in the forthcoming update of the ERICA Tool anticipated to be released in autumn 2013. This update will take into account: lessons learnt during model inter-comparison exercises (e.g. the IAEA EMRAS programmes and the EURATOM PROTECT project), user feedback, and recent evaluations (e.g. see Brown et al). The changes will include:
- Revised transfer parameters based primarily upon dataset underpinning IAEA Handbook of Radionuclide Transfer Parameters for Wildlife (see links above)
Minor changes to the Reference Organism list (updated 14/12/12)- Amended guidance used when data are lacking
- Recalculated the Environmental Media Concentration Limits (EMCL) using the revised transfer parameters
- Amended approach to estimating EMCL values
- An expanded default radionuclide list to include all radionuclides which are considered in ICRP Publication 114. This will mean that Ba-140, Ca-45, Cr-51, Cf-252, Ir-192, La-140, Pa-231 and Zn-65 are added to the existing ERICA Tools default radionuclide list.
- Update the dose conversion coefficients