Pitfalls Associated with the Estimation of Radiological Burdens on Population Caused by Radiation Accidents

The initial intention of this essay was to compare our environmental code PRIMO with the commonly accepted code COSYMA. All basic output radiological variables are in very good agreement after our careful mutual tuning of all input parameters of both products. However, a certain disproportion was encountered when proceeding to the estimation of radiation doses. It became apparent that due to the hidden variability of the parameters of the dosimetric model, the estimation of the radiological impact on the human body can be generated with a different degree of conservatism. These effects should be accounted for when using the environmental codes for assessment of the radiological impact on a population. An alternative approach of the assessment taking into consideration the variability and subsequently uncertainty of the input parameters can afford more informative answers to the evaluation questions. From this point of view, the PRIMO algorithm follows the research trend of progress from the deterministic calculations towards the probabilistic approach of the consequence estimation.