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Abstract: This paper specifically discusses an atmospheric dispersion modeling and health risk assessment for Cs-137 to assess the potential and actual effects on human health from an inhalation event due to a radiological terrorist attack in the Seoul metropolitan area, Korea. The source term was assumed to be 5TBq of Cs-137, introduced into the central part of Seoul’s metropolitan area by a terrorist attack. Atmospheric dispersion models can be used to support the decision making and risk assessments when terrorist attacks have happened in an urban area. The concepts of Gaussian plume modeling and computational fluid dynamics modeling were used to calculate the Cs-137 concentration in the air. Mortality risk and morbid risk coefficients for the inhalation of contaminated air were used to assess the human health risk. The mortality and morbidity are 1.12E−2 and 1.64E−2, respectively in case of the Gaussian plume, while 6.23E−3 and 9.13E−3 in case of the computational fluid dynamics model. The results of the modeling are dependent on the terror scenarios and dispersion models. Accordingly, the optimization process is needed for final decision making. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

A study was carried out to determine the source rate from a nuclear power plant using the tracer experimental data conducted at the Yeoung-Kwang nuclear site. The least squares method optimises the agreement between the released source rate and the calculated source rate by minimising the errors between the measured concentrations and the calculated ones using the Gaussian plume model. The least squares estimator generally estimates the source rate to be within a factor of 2. The forecasting ability of the source rate is improved by applying the modified dispersion coefficients that are calculated using the experimental data. Determination of the source rate in an early phase nuclear emergency will be helpful for the decision making when taking appropriate and prompt countermeasures in the case of a radiological emergency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]