The significance of the natural environment in radiation protection

Publisher Summary The comparative assessment of individual and collective doses demonstrates clearly the predominant role of the exposure to the natural radiation environment (NRE), such as: NRE contributes almost four-times the combined contributions from nuclear diagnostic medicine and nuclear power production to the collective dose of mankind; the ten-year global use of coal results in approximately the same collective dose as the collective dose due to the Chernobyl accident; the annual collective dose of all persons occupationally exposed at various technical sites (mining, industry, medicine, nuclear fuel cycle) is equivalent to about 10 hours of global exposure to the NRE. A new concept (INRE Scale) is proposed to communicate radiation exposure scenarios to the public, using the bandwidth of normal NRE exposure as a reference value and linking it to the Basic Safety Standards. With regard to radiation protection, this revision of the current strategy will necessitate that regulatory priorities are set in accordance with the individual and the collective risk. The ultimate goal should be the optimization of the means available for managing the total radiation-induced risk, placing less weight on the source of the radiation exposure but rather on its magnitude and focusing on its cost-effective controllability. The vast database assembled worldwide on the NRE and TENR could provide a useful tool in putting exposures resulting from man-made radiation sources into perspective.