DECISION-SUPPORT FOR OFF-SITE EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS IN EUROPE

The decision support system, RODOS, for off-site emergency management in the event of a future accident is being developed with support from the European Commission. The development is bring carried out within a large and fully integrated international project involving about for ty institutes from sixteen countries in Eastern and Western Europe. RO DOS has been designed to provide comprehensive (i.e. applicable at all distances, at all times and to all important countermeasures) decisio n support and to be applicable throughout Europe. The background to th e development of RODOS is described in this paper together with its ba sic features, its current status and plans for its further development . Given the context of this Special Issue, particular attention is giv en to the contribution made by institutes in the former Soviet Union t o the development of RODOS and plans for its implementation in these c ountries. The benefits of the system are increasingly being recognised following the completion of the pilot version in 1995. Of particular importance is its potential role as pan of a wider European network, t he existence of which would promote a more effective and coherent resp onse to any future nuclear accident that might affect Europe.