Landscape Modeling for Dose Calculations in the Safety Assessment of a Repository for Spent Nuclear Fuel

The Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Co., (SKB), pursues site investigations for the final repository for spent nuclear fuel at two sites in the south eastern part of Sweden, the Forsmark- and the Laxemar site (figure 1). Data from the two site investigations are used to build site descriptive models of the areas. These models describe the bedrock and surface system properties important for designing the repository, the environmental impact assessment, and the long-term safety, i.e. up to 100,000 years, in a safety assessment. In this paper we discuss the methodology, and the interim results for, the landscape model, used in the safety assessment to populate the Forsmark site in the numerical dose models. The landscape model is built upon ecosystem types, e.g. a lake or a mire, (Biosphere Objects) that are connected in the landscape via surface hydrology. Each of the objects have a unique set of properties derived from the site description. The objects are identified by flow transport modeling, giving discharge points at the surface for all possible flow paths from the hypothetical repository in the bedrock. The landscape development is followed through time by using long-term processes e.g. shoreline displacement and sedimentation. The final landscape model consists of a number of maps for each chosen time period and a table of properties that describe the individual objects which constitutes the landscape. The results show a landscape that change over time during 20,000 years. The time period used in the model equals the present interglacial and can be used as an analogue for a future interglacial. Historically, the model area was covered by sea, and then gradually changes into a coastal area and, in the future, into a terrestrial inland landscape. Different ecosystem types are present during the landscape development, e.g. sea, lakes, agricultural areas, forest and wetlands (mire). The biosphere objects may switch from one ecosystem type to another during the modeled time period, from sea to lake, and from lake to mire and finally, some objects are transformed into agricultural area due to favorable farming characteristics.