Nuclear or radiological emergencies, such as the nuclear accidents at Chernobyl in 1986, and Fukushima Daiichi in 2011, can have disastrous sociological and economic consequences. To organise sound countermeasures for the protection of the general public against the dangers of radiological emergencies, it is essential to have early and reliable knowledge of activity concentrations in air, contamination levels of farmland, and dose rate levels in urban areas.

This course provides an introduction to the measurement of dose rate and radioactivity concentration in air. It is applicable to Europe-wide monitoring of data in the event of a radiological emergency.

This course consists of three modules:

• Module 1: Core principles for radiological early warning networks
• Module 2: Dose rate monitoring networks
• Module 3: Airborne radioactivity monitoring networks

Learners who successfully complete the course will receive an NPL Certificate of Completion.

Required prior knowledge:

• Module 1 is designed to require very little prior knowledge. It explains for the general public, and for those just entering the field, the background to the project and some of the underlying physical principles
• Modules 2 and 3 are more technically detailed, and a background in nuclear metrology, while not essential, would be of benefit

This e-learning course has been created as part of the European Metrology Research Programme (EMRP) MetroERM project, and results from the collaboration between NPL, AUTH (Greece), BfS (Germany), CEA (France), CIEMAT (Spain), CMI (Czech Republic), ENEA (Italy), IFIN-HH (Romania), IJS (Slovenia), IRSN (France), JRC (EU Commission), PTB (Germany), SCK·CEN (Belgium), TAEK (Turkey), UPC (Spain). The project was co-ordinated by PTB (Germany).