Ten years since the Fukushima Daiichi NPP disaster: What's important when protecting the population from a multifaceted technological disaster

Abstract

Focusing on the Fukushima Daiich nuclear power plant (NPP) disaster, as well experience from other NPP disasters, this paper describes what off-site arrangements for protecting the population were in place prior to the Fukushima Daiichi NPP disaster, what response actions were taken and identifies important insights related to protecting the population in a multifaceted technological disaster. This paper particularly focuses on urgent protective actions, which need to be taken promptly in order to be effective in reducing the risk to the population from ionising radiation: evacuation, sheltering and iodine thyroid blocking (ITB). Many national response arrangements for NPP disasters continue – even 10 years after the Fukushima Daiich NPP disaster – to rely on decision support systems, such as dose projection models, to inform off-site decision-making during the response to a disaster. This is despite experience demonstrating that such models would probably, in most cases, be ineffective early on in the response. The fundamental problem is not the improvement of decision support systems, but the strategy to ensure the effective protection of the population and reduce their risk. This research will help policymakers, environmental scientists, and disaster response planners to focus and prioritise resources on those high-level insights that need to be addressed to ensure effective protection of the population living in the vicinity of an NPP.