Implications of the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster: Man-Made Hazards, Vulnerability Factors, and Risk to Environmental Health
Abstract
The objective of this article was to examine the environmental health implications of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster from an all-hazards perspective. The authors performed a literature review that included Japanese and international nuclear guidance and policy, scientific papers, and reports on the Chernobyl and
Introduction
The Fukushima nuclear disaster triggered by the magnitude 9.0 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami on
Therefore, we sought an understanding of the risk of radiation from the Fukushima nuclear disaster to environmental health and to learn how that risk was communicated to the public. Further, we aimed to gain an understanding of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant preparedness and response challenges that led to the Fukushima nuclear disaster and the associated risk to environmental health. We studied the Fukushima nuclear disaster and its effect upon environmental health through an all-hazards lens. We analyzed the known risk of radiation to environmental health, the factors that led to its release, and concepts of environmental health end fate as relational to disaster planning. We cross-examined whether the Fukushima nuclear disaster would apply to disaster planning, risk communication, and consequence management rubrics in other countries including the U.S. This article attempts to clarify disaster planning challenges to all-hazards identification and vulnerability analysis processes. It also discusses how our research led us to understand the risk to environmental health by distinguishing man- made hazards and vulnerability factors from a natural disaster trigger event.
Methods
We conducted a literature review of publications germane to the Fukushima nuclear disaster including the following subject matter: national and international nuclear industry standards; the site operator,
Research Questions
1) How did the natural disaster trigger event, man-made hazards, and vulnerability factors impact risk assessment and communication capacity and heighten the risk to environmental health?
2) What do the environmental health implications of the Fukushima nuclear disaster add to all-hazards planning and response capacity opportunity, including concepts of environmental end fate, in and outside
From an all-hazards/CBRNE (chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and explosive) preparedness perspective, we sought to understand and differentiate the hazards existing at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant at the time of the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami. We intended to explore the application of that knowledge to disaster planning processes in and outside
Results
Our analysis of the Fukushima nuclear disaster found that risk to environmental health profoundly associates with disaster trigger events, man-made hazards, vulnerability factors, and level of preparedness and adequacy of response. The Fukushima nuclear disaster provides insight into the risk of man-made hazards and nuclear plant vulnerabilities.
Disaster Trigger Event
The Fukushima nuclear disaster was triggered by linked natural disasters, both of which were probabilistically analyzed according to geographic and geological metrics by Japanese risk assessment authorities (National Diet of
Other international preparedness perspectives such as the Hyogo Framework, which is hailed as the lead international disaster driver, are natural-disaster focused (Maurice, 2013). The Hyogo Framework, predominantly focused on external disaster events (Maurice, 2013), has led to response, or event-based planning paradigms. Other international sources warned that secondary technological and infrastructure failure events can be initiated by a natural disaster trigger event, causing secondary hazards release as its consequence (Cruz, Steinberg, Arellano, Nordviuk, & Pisano, 2004;
The Fukushima nuclear disaster stands apart from the Chernobyl and
Vulnerability Factors
Specific vulnerability factors heightened the risk of man-made hazards stored at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant early in the disaster event horizon: multi-unit reactor configuration, spent nuclear fuel pools, risk assessment and communication, and incident command system execution.
Multi-Unit Reactor Configuration
The near proximity of six nuclear reactor units caused one to directly affect the others, compounding the severity of systems failures and response difficulty (
Spent Nuclear Fuel
The open-water storage vessels containing thermally hot, high-level radioactive spent nuclear fuel were of particular concern early in the event. Spent nuclear fuel is not stored within the fortified containment units that safeguard reactor fuel release. Spent nuclear fuel, the "most hazardous of all man-made wastes," must be managed for 200,000 years, essentially "forever," due to the lack of disposal options presently challenging the U.S. and other nations (PSR, 2011; Rosenbaum, 2014; Taebi & Klosterman, 2008). Dependent upon constant cooling processes that require complex and integrated electrical systems to maintain safe cooling temperatures, spent nuclear fuel pools lost mechanical cooling capacity at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant for over three weeks. IAEA records show that power was restored at least partially to all nuclear reactor units and spent nuclear fuel pools on
Spent nuclear fuel rod assemblies, which contain hundreds of rods, must be stored in carefully spaced containers to prevent a spontaneous nuclear reaction. Spent nuclear fuel in
Risk Assessment and Communication The site power blackout rendered real-time monitoring equipment incapable of measuring radiological hazard inventories released to the environment, impeding accurate risk assessment, safety measures, and communication (
Incident Command System Execution
Incompetent incident command execution prolonged response time and decreased radiation containment performance and safety margins (National Diet of
Man-Made Hazards
National and international nuclear oversight agencies provide focus for nuclear site safety programs in general. The IAEA lists three primary nuclear plant safety functions: prevention of criticality, removal of fuel heat, and the mitigation of radioactive releases (IAEA, 201 Id).
The National Diet of
In the U.S., all-hazards preparedness was originally driven by pre-1996
The terms risk and hazard should not be interchangeable (
According to the 2012
After discovering significant post-Fukushima nuclear disaster vulnerability assessment inconsistencies in U.S. licensee processes, the NRC provided them a new definition: "plant specific vulnerabilities are those features that are important to safety that when subjected to an increased demand, due to the newly calculated hazard evaluation, have not been shown to be capable to perform their intended functions (NRC, 2012)." The NRC Fact Sheet on Probabilistic Risk Assessment states that the U.S. nuclear facilities pose "no undue risk to public health and safety (NRC, 2014c)." The
Because intentional attacks can cause a site blackout, the Fukushima nuclear disaster lessons learned are applicable to attack-prone sites in the world. For example, infrastructure vulnerability to cyber attacks could result in power-grid loss and other systems failures. South Korean hydro and nuclear plant security was maliciously breached in
Risk to
The Fukushima nuclear disaster caused the largest discharge of radiation into an ocean in the history of the world (Sutton & Cassalli, 2011); yet ocean discharges were monitored in a "rushed" and "panicky" manner by
The
The WHO International Health Regulation (IHR), which was revised in 2005, seeks to "...provide a public health response to the international spread of disease..." It includes the natural, accidental, and deliberate release of radiologicallv contaminated materials (underlined by authors). The IHR legally binds 196 countries around the world, including
The environmental health problems generated by the Fukushima nuclear disaster are also of a global nature. The Fukushima nuclear disaster produced "likely the largest radioactive noble gas release" to the air in history (Stohl et ah, 2012). The Fukushima Dai-ichi power plant continues to discharge dangerous levels of radiation into the
The Fukushima Nuclear Disaster: An All-Hazards Planning Reference Model
We present the disaster planning model below, established from Fukushima nuclear disaster lessons learned. We segment "Disaster Trigger Event," "Man-Made Hazard," and "Vulnerability Factors" to enable differentiation of independent vulnerability analyses. In this model, we follow the WHO preparedness equation denominator standard "Level of Preparedness" (WHO, 2007) and add "Adequacy of Response."
Risk to
We find that the "Risk to
Given the analysis of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, "Risk to
Discussion
What Was Known
Cascading electrical systems failures of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant resulted in a massive expulsion of stored radioactive hazards, including varying concentrations of strontium, cesium, plutonium, americium, iodine isotopes, and radioactive noble gases to the environment (IAEA, 2011; National Diet of
What We Found
We exhibited in our model that interacting "Vulnerability Factors" exacerbated the power blackout-initiated release of "ManMade Hazards" at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, though the magnitude of "Risk to
The process of hazard vulnerability assessment focuses on specific internal hazards that are likely to be present for a facility, and external events that are geographically, meteorologically, and even biologically predictable (
In addition, all geographic locations in the world are potentially vulnerable to intentional man-made acts of terrorism or other adverse event occurrences that are likely to occur in that community. The hazard vulnerability assessment tool combines notions of event probability and severity. Some hazard vulnerability assessment standards specifically advise, however, to "minimize planning for unlikely events (
The lessons learned from the Fukushima nuclear disaster can also apply to other sites and nations. We discovered that U.S. hazard vulnerability assessment processes share similar disaster planning challenges, including the following paradigm groups: event, natural disaster, probability, supply chain, and continuity of operations-driven planning foci. Low-probability high-consequence disaster events receive lower priority in general. We found that
Limitations
This analysis was based upon documents published by the time of the submission of the manuscript. Thus, unpublished documents and internal reports were not reviewed. In our Fukushima nuclear disaster analysis, the natural disaster trigger event refers to a double natural disaster (earthquake and tsunami) that caused the site blackout and instantaneously resulted in the release of radiation. We acknowledge the specificity of the conditions that we describe relevant to the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Because accidental and manmade disasters can also cause site blackouts, this limitation does not weaken our findings. Instead, we discussed the strength of our findings and their relevance to vulnerabilities that exist at most industrial plant locations.
Conclusion
Extensive barriers to risk assessment and communication existed prior to the Fukushima nuclear disaster that impeded disaster "Level of Preparedness" and "Adequacy of Response," resulting in heightened "Risk to
A uniform lexicon for disaster planning descriptions that effectively defines and standardizes concepts of risk, hazard, vulnerability, and natural disaster trigger event should be established internationally. The U.S. hazard vulnerability assessment process must additionally emphasize the estimation of, and planning for, the environmental health endfate consequences of industrial hazard inventories potentially released off site. Contamination considerations for food, water, and human evacuation and other safety restrictions should be made jointly by industry, the government, and the community, in event planning, assurance, and oversight phases.
The selection of "Man-Made Hazard" and "Vulnerability Factor" modification, substitution, reduction, or elimination processes will require a reexamination of nuclear power feasibility on social, environmental, and economic perspectives. Benefit margins should be compared to the potential risk to environmental health. This process may lead towards environmental justice for vulnerable populations, though such concepts are not yet well formed. Environmental health professionals, well trained in all-hazards disaster preparedness principles, understand the environmental health consequences potentiated by industry. Environmental health professionals should be involved in hazard vulnerability assessment, disaster planning, emergency response, and consequence management processes. Ml
Acknowledgements: The authors wish to acknowledge the helpful assistance of librarians at the
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REHS, RS, CP-FS
Engineering, and Technology
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