The European Radiological Data Exchange Platform (EURDEP): 25 years of monitoring data exchange

Abstract

During the early phase of an accident with the release of radioactive material to the environment at the local or transboundary scale, a rapid and continuous system of information exchange, including real-time monitoring data to competent authorities and the public, is critical for setting up countermeasures. This information and data exchange must be carried out in a harmonized and consistent manner to facilitate its interpretation and analysis. After the Chernobyl accident in 1986, and in order to avoid the competent authorities being unprepared again for a similar event, the European Commission (EC) defined and put in place a directive (Council Decision 87/600/EURATOM, 1987) which essentially obliges a member state that decides to implement widespread countermeasures to protect its population to notify the European Commission without delay. The same Council Decision also specifies that the results of radiological monitoring must be made available to the European Commission and all potentially affected member states. Over the past 30 years, the European Commission has invested resources in developing and improving a complete system to carry out this delicate task, currently composed of two platforms: the European Community Urgent Radiological Information Exchange (ECURIE) and the European Radiological Data Exchange Platform (EURDEP). This paper aims to increase knowledge of the latter system as a valuable tool for understanding and analysing the radioactivity levels in Europe. Commencing with background information, in this paper, we will describe the EURDEP system in detail, with an emphasis on its status, data availability, and how these data are diffused depending on the audience. Within the scope of this publication, we describe an example of measurements available in the EURDEP system, which to be used for scientific purposes. We provide two complete datasets (air-concentration samples – https://doi.org/10.2905/23CBC7C4-4FCC-47D5-A286-F8A4EDC8215F; De Cort et al., 2019a; and gamma dose rates – https://doi.org/10.2905/0F9F3E2D-C8D7-4F46-BBE7-EACF3EED1560; De Cort et al., 2019b) for the recent radiological release of 106Ru in Europe, which occurred between the end of September and early October 2017. Records stored are publicly accessible through an unrestricted repository called COLLECTION belonging to the JRC Data Public Catalogue (https://data.jrc.ec.europa.eu, last access: 1 July 2019).