Recommendations for the Fukushima project from foreign scientists

There has been much reflection on the issue of access to and sharing of data and information among the different agencies involved in emergency response both in the country where an accident happened and among third-party countries. A universal data exchange format has been proposed by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as a result (IRIX Steering Committee, 2013). The creation at the start of an emergency of a database containing exhaustive entries for all measurements (e.g. location of measuring devices, measuring device types, measurement errors, producers) would facilitate the work of the different bodies while removing the burden of communication from the affected country. A public database of this kind would also improve transparency in relation to the public. In France, for example, a shared database is currently being created. The same logic could also be applied to meteorological observations, to the parameters defining the state of the facility and even to the outcomes of expert assessments.