Title: Description and performance of Bulgarian Emergency Response System in casе of nuclear accident (BERS)

Authors: Dimiter Syrakov, Maria Prodanova, Kiril Slavov

Addresses: National Institute of Meteorology and Hydrology, 66 Tzarigradsko chaussee Blvd, Sofia 1784, Bulgaria. ' National Institute of Meteorology and Hydrology, 66 Tzarigradsko chaussee Blvd, Sofia 1784, Bulgaria. ' National Institute of Meteorology and Hydrology, 66 Tzarigradsko chaussee Blvd, Sofia 1784, Bulgaria

Abstract: A PC-oriented Emergency Response System in case of nuclear accident (BERS) is developed and works operationally in the National Institute of Meteorology and Hydrology (NIMH) with the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. The creation and development of BERS was highly stimulated by the ETEX (European Tracer Experiment) project, followed by the European RTMOD (Real-Time Modelling) project. BERS comprises two main parts – the operational and the accidental one, which are applied both to region ||Europe|| and region ||Northern Hemisphere|| (versions E and NH). The operational part runs automatically. It makes search for the necessary meteorological data received in NIMH via the Global Telecommunication System (GTS) of the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), prepares the input meteorological file used by both trajectory and dispersion models, creates archives with meteorological data base, runs the trajectory models, visualises the results obtained and uploads the maps of trajectories for specified nuclear power plants (NPP) to the web site of NIMH. The operational part runs every 12 hours, after the new meteorological information is received. The accidental part is activated manually when a real radioactive releases in the environment occur or during emergency exercises. Two Bulgarian dispersion models – LED and EMAP are the cores of the accidental part. The concentration and accumulated deposition fields are output by these models. After visualisation the concentration and deposition maps are uploaded to the ftp-server of NIMH for use by the interested institutions. In the paper, the BERS overall structure is described and a number of applications are shown including several runs in the frame of the European 5th Framework Programme Project ENSEMBLE.

Keywords: nuclear accident; emergency response; early warning system; air dispersion models; pollution concentration; accumulated deposition; Bulgaria.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEP.2003.004292

International Journal of Environment and Pollution, 2003 Vol.20 No.1/2/3/4/5/6, pp.286 - 296

Published online: 10 May 2004 *

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