Requirements of Decision Support Tools for Coordinating the National Response to Nuclear Emergencies

Effective management of a national response to a nuclear emergency relies on decision-makers having sufficient information at the appropriate time. Numerous decision support tools have been developed to address the specific and individual needs of the decision-makers during an emergency. These tools are designed to assist personnel under extreme pressure to deal with on-site, off-site, regional and national issues that may arise. This paper describes the issues that national organisations responding to nuclear emergencies are required to address in order to ensure that accurate and timely information is prepared. During the early phases of an emergency, limited information will be available to the decision-makers. Automated systems such as the Radioactive Incident Monitoring Network (RIMNET) in the UK that undertake continuous monitoring on a national scale can be used to provide early indications of the location radiation levels above the background level arising from a radioactive plume.