Preliminary Development of an Expert System for the Fate Prediction of Marine Radioactivity

Abstract

Preliminary version of an expert system for the initial prompt assessment of environmental impacts of marine radioactivity materials released routinely and/or accidently has been developed for the technical support of decision makers. The concept of the system is similar to the CORMIX system for the thermal discharge prediction developed by professor Jirka from US. The system uses the multi-compartment model POSEIDON-R equipped with dynamic food chain model so called extended BURN-POSEIDON (Bezhenar et al, 2016) which takes into account the transfer of marine radioactivity through pelagic and benthic marine organisms. In detail, phytoplankton, zooplankton, fish (two types: piscivorous and non-piscivorous), crustaceans, and molluscs are considered for the pelagic food chain, deposit-feeding invertebrates, demersal fish and bottom predators are considered for the benthic food chain and coastal predators feeding by both pelagic and benthic organisms. The modeled region is assumed to have a straight coastline and is divided into a set of horizontal rectangular boxes (or compartments) and vertical layers. Sizes of boxes can vary horizontally but are kept constant. At the outset water depth, currents and mixing without temporal variation are specified in each box. The specified values are constant to the direction parallel to the coastline while they can vary to the direction normal to the coastline. Preliminary experiments have been performed according to a range of hypothetical scenarios where routine and accidental releases of radioactivity in the coastal environment are included. It is expected that the expert system will help to provide decision makers with prompt information about the marine radioactivity contamination level in marine organisms in coastal sea regions where routine and accidental releases of marine radioactivity occur.