SUMMARY
To better assess human factors in selecting and using a spatial interpolation algorithm for mapping purposes, a statistical exercise was organised in 1997 in collaboration with REM. Participants were invited to estimate daily rainfall measurements at unsampled sites as well as their extreme values, was organised in the frame of the Radioactive Environmental Monitoring institutional support programme of the Environment Institute (Joint Research Centre, EC, Ispra). The expected objectives of SIC97 were manifold. The first one was to give a more general overview of existing spatial interpolation methods and to highlight the latest developments in spatial statistics. If daily rainfall measurements have been distributed to the participants, a variable everyone is familiar with, their conclusions can nevertheless be easily extended to the problem of mapping radioactivity in the environment. Daily rainfall and radioactivity deposited on the ground after an accidental release in the atmosphere do not only behave in a similar way, i.e. the variables present usually a global trend and strong local fluctuations, but they are also intimately correlated since rainfall is the main factor affecting the deposition of radioactivity released to the atmosphere. The participants were therefore also invited to evaluate their methods for the monitoring of the radioactivity in the environment, this in situation of routine or emergency.
PARTICIPANTS
MIT (USA), EPFL (Switzerland), University of Windsor (Canada), Martin-Luther University of Halle Wittenberg (Germany); CRES (Australia); Urban Sciences Inc. (USA); ULB (Belgium); University of Southampton (UK); INRA (France); Nuclear Safety Institute (Russia); Institute of Natural Resource Management (Taiwan); University of New South Wales (Australia)
DELIVERABLE
EUR 20667 EN - Mapping radioactivity in the environment
Editors: G. Dubois, J. Malczewski, M. De Cort
2003 - 268 pp. - 21.0 x 29.7 cm
Publisher: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, Luxembourg
ISBN: 92 894-5371-0
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