Annual Report and Assessment of Discharges of Radionuclides from the Non-Nuclear Sectors in 2022

Data are available on ODIMS via:  https://odims.ospar.org/en/submissions/ospar_rnuclides_non_nuclear_2022_01/

Executive Summary

RSC 2004 agreed that Contracting Parties should report the discharges from their non-nuclear sub-sectors annually using the agreed reporting template. The data for 2022 have been reported in accordance with the Revised Reporting Procedures for Discharges of Radioactive Substances from Non-Nuclear Sectors. Data have been collected since 2005.  Several Contracting Parties (CPs) have provided non-nuclear discharge data for 2022: 7 CPs reported for oil/gas; 7 CPs reported on their university and research; and 7 CPs reported on their medical sector.

There are sufficient data to make an assessment for 2022. The reports for produced water discharges from the oil/gas sub-sector cover the major contributions and, although incomplete, it is possible to judge the relative contribution from the medical sub-sector. Other sub-sectors are either well reported or make relatively insignificant contributions.

It has been necessary to estimate certain discharges from incomplete data – consequently care needs to be taken in using this assessment report for purposes other than those envisaged by OSPAR RSC. In this assessment report the term “total beta” means total beta (excluding tritium) – the full definition is used in headings, but the abbreviation is used in the text.