BALTIC SEAENVIRONMENT PROCEEDINGS No. 59 - Helcom

TERMS OF REFERENCES FOR THE GROUP OF EXPERTS ON MONITORING OF
RADIOACTNE SUBSTANCES IN THE BALTIC SEA (EC MORS)
The duties of the Group of Experts on Monitoring of Radioactive
Substances in the Baltic Sea are:
a)
b)
c)
d)
to advise the Environment Committee on matters related to
monitoring and assessment of the state of radioactive substances
in the Baltic Sea, and in particular:
(0
to compile available data on radioactive discharges
to the Baltic Sea, and to report them to
the Environment Committee anually;
(ii) to collect data from all compartments of the open
sea, preferably from "Baltic Monitoring Programme"
(BMP) stations, and from coastal areas
when appropriate, for the preparation of inventories
and for showing trends and to report the
results annually to the Environment Committee in
order to gain a better understanding of the behaviour
of radionuclides in the Baltic Sea;
(iii) to include radionuclide data into the data bases
established by the Commission, both for MORS
environmental data and for MORS release data, and
&Q evaluate the data regularly;
to evaluate the results and to assess the risks
caused by direct discharges as well as long-range
transboundary transports of radioactive substances
to man and marine life and the radiation burden
to the population living around the Baltic
Sea, as well as to develop models to predict
radiation doses in the event of an accident;
P) to ascertain that all aspects of quality assurance of
analytical data are covered;
to invite, when deemed necessary, other subsidiary bodies
of the Committees to consider specific matters of common
interest related to their mandates;
to advice on matters related to its specific mandate upon
request by their subsidiary bodies of the Committees;
to report on its activities to the Environment Committee.
The group of Experts on Monitoring of Radioactive Substances in
the Baltic Sea ( EC MORS) held its first meeting in Helsinki in
April 1986, just about three weeks before the fallout from the
accident at Chernobyl deposited large quantities of radioactivity
into this sea area. By means of the group MORS, there existed
an international expert group, which was able to study the fall-
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