Off-site environmental gamma monitoring

Project

Environmental monitoring for public and stakeholder reassurance

Benefits

UAS monitoring allows improvements to radioactivity mapping within publicly accessible areas of West Cumbria. Such data is reported to the EA and reviewed by West Cumbria site stakeholder group and COMARE contaminations working group.

The use of a UAS provides significant safety and resource benefits over traditional manned surveys of the estuarine mudflats.

Current Status

This project is ongoing with initial surveys planned for Summer 2024.

Delivery Partners

University of Bristol

Contact Details

Dr Richard Hill, Dr Laura Newsome

innovation.team@sellafieldsites.com

Sellafield Ltd have a duty to assess the off-site environment at locations where radioactivity, legally discharged from legacy operations, could reside or accumulate due to continually changing natural processes.

Currently, ground-based methods such as personal probe surveys or vehicle-mounted platforms are utilised for monitoring, mapping, and sampling at sites like beaches and estuaries. While low-cost, simple to operate and fast to deploy, these approaches are time-consuming and inefficient when compared to now well-established aerial technologies, such as Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) equipped with radiation detectors.

Given the remote nature of the monitoring sites, an opportunity to trial enhanced surveying methods could be of benefit to Sellafield Ltd, its regulators/stakeholders, and enhance public awareness of environmental assurance activities.

In collaboration with the University of Bristol, this project seeks to pilot the UAS data monitoring approach at the Esk Estuary, where radioactivity distributions have been identified as requiring further investigation through analysis of data produced by the statutory Sellafield environmental monitoring programme.

When equipped with modern detector technology, such as large-volume solid-state scintillator detectors, this highly automated approach allows for regular repeat surveys and monitoring data collection to be performed with little or no user input, with rapid transfer into our geospatial tools for visualisation and processing.

Successful implementation of this approach would not only yield the desired data at the estuary, but also save time and resources in the future by reducing the need for manual input in the data collection process. Additionally, a successful outcome will further inform future decisions regarding the adoption of such systems across the organisation, potentially replacing manual data collection entirely.