A PRESERVATION STRATEGY FOR RK&M

Chapter 2. A preservation strategy for RK&M

The overarching vision for the RK&M Initiative is the development and publication of a “menu” of tools and techniques to preserve information about radioactive waste disposal facilities. National disposal programmes can then select components from this menu, taking account of legal requirements, to create a varied system that maximises the likelihood of RK&M transfer and survivability over various timescales. The combination of mechanisms would be chosen on the basis that they provide robustness through reinforcement, cross-referencing, diversity and redundancy.

The menu contains a range of “approaches”:

•memory institutions;

•culture, education and art;

•international mechanisms;

•markers;

•time capsules;

•oversight provisions;

•regulatory framework;

•knowledge management;

•dedicated record sets and summary files.

Each of these approaches is composed from sub-components or “mechanisms”, for which unique descriptions have been developed within the RK&M initiative, based on a standard template.

A possible preservation strategy for RK&M would, for example, combine formal archives and physical marker programmes, supported by the creation of incentives for the local retention of memory.

Information retention and transmission

The RK&M initiative thus promotes an RK&M preservation strategy based on simultaneous, redundant and independent pathways. It is labelled “dual-track” where it takes advantage of mediated and non-mediated transmission into the future.