The current events in Japan are challenging radioecology as well as nuclear safety. An important issue worth considering is to assess what is the level of achievement of the scientific knowledge reached with regard to understanding the environmental impact of radiation accidentally released over the territories and the sea. As a prerequisite to the management of risk, scientific undesrtanding is key to anticipation of the delterious consequences of the contamination and to designing countermeasures, remediation and mitigation techniques. This calls the radioecology community to promote some self-analysis: what is the actual degree of scientific advancement of radioecology, where are the problems remaining unsolved, and what are finally the current research priorities.
The links below, to gradually add up with time, are to provide some selected expert views in this context as they become available from the radioecology community. It is expected that such opinions and views over the priorities for R&D could usefully contribute to feeding the construction of an international strategic research agenda in radioecology for the next ten years or so.