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Following a nuclear accident, a major dilemma for affected people is whether to stay or leave the affected area, or, for those who have been evacuated, whether or not to return to the decontaminated zones. Populations who have to make such decisions have to consider many parameters, one of which is the radiological situation. Feedback from Chernobyl and Fukushima has demonstrated that involvement and empowerment of the affected population is a way to provide them with the necessary elements to make informed decisions and, if they decide to return to decontaminated areas, to minimise exposure by contributing to the development of a prudent attitude and vigilance towards exposure. However, involving stakeholders in postaccident management raises the question of the role of experts and public authorities in supporting the inhabitants who have to make decisions about their future. Based on experiences in Chernobyl and Fukushima, this paper will discuss various principles that have to be taken into account by experts and public authorities about their role and position when dealing with stakeholders in a postaccident recovery process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a research paper on modeling radiological dose in non-human species. The study analyzes the principles regarding this and computerized methods and its application. The research aims at a fast and user-friendly computerized method to allow the transformation from exposure to dose received from any radionuclide by any non-human species, for a unit of time and a unit of concentration of radionuclide in the radiation source. The study demonstrates the possibility of a flexible and user-friendly tool able to evaluate the energy dose rate delivered to non-human species exposed to radionuclides. The method developed is an intermediate solution between the rough approach of most of the existing environmental dosimetric methods. The method requires look-up tables and the specialized knowledge required to accurately make calculations using large physics-based codes. The numerical accuracy of the methodology was verified at various stages in the calculation. The study also evaluates the importance of developing such a tool to support the increasing interest in environmental protection against ionizing radiation.