Palaeohydrogeological Data Analysis and Model Testing (PADAMOT)

Work Programme: Communication

Palaeohydrogeology is both an interesting area of study and one that provides essential contributions to the safety case for a deep repository. It is interesting because it understands how the groundwater conditions that we observe today have evolved by physical and chemical processes that are linked to geological, climate and other environmental changes. It provides the framework of temporal and spatial rates of change. It is essential to a repository safety case because it is the source of evidence on which the stability of groundwater conditions in a particular location can be assessed, and it provides the rationale for 'going deep' to eliminate the impacts of climate change. Concepts and findings from these studies need to be communicated to safety assessment modellers, regulators, the scientific community and the general public. The means of achieving this are:

• Preliminary workshop and discussion forum for the project team and other scientists and safety assessment experts, to review the achievements of previous projects in this area (EQUIP, PAGEPA, PHYMOL, Palmottu site study) and to identify priorities for what is required from the project.
• Publications in the open scientific literature - initially a comprehensive overview of the topic and of the outputs from the predecessor EQUIP project, explaining the analytical results and their interpretations in terms of groundwater conditions, model constraints and scenarios.
• Construction and launch of this web site with links to search engines on relevant key words, as a portal for accessible delivery of ideas and information.
• Transfer of expertise to partner organisations through training and access to instrumentation, so that a common Europe-wide approach to these methods can be developed, agreed and implemented.