Executive Summary

SCOPE 59 Nuclear Test Explosions: Environmental and Human Impacts, F.Warner and R.J.C. Kirchmann eds., 1999.

The Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment (SCOPE) is one of a number of committees established by the non-governmental group of scientific organizations, the International Council for Science (ICSU). To cover multidisciplinary activities which include the interest of several Unions, ICSU has established 13 Scientific Committees, of which SCOPE is one. Currently representatives of 40 member countries and 22 Unions, Scientific Committees and Associates participate in the work of SCOPE, which directs particular attention to the needs of developing countries. SCOPE was established in 1969 in response to the environmental concerns emerging at the time: ICSU recognized that many of these concerns required scientific inputs spanning several disciplines and several Unions within ICSU. SCOPE's first task was to prepare a report on Global Environmental Monitoring (SCOPE 1, 1971) for the UN Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment. The mandate of SCOPE is to assemble, review, and assess the information available on environmental changes attributable to human activity and the effects of these changes on humans; to assess and evaluate the methodologies of measurement of environmental parameters; to provide an intelligence service on current research; and by the recruitment of the best available scientific information and constructive thinking to establish itself as a corpus of informed advice for the benefit of centers of fundamental research and of organizations and agencies operationally engaged in studies of the environment. SCOPE is governed by the General Assembly, which meets every three years. Between such meetings its activities are directed by the Executive Committee.

 

This volume reports the findings of the RADTEST (RADiation from nuclear TEST explosions) study, which falls within SCOPE's Health and Environment cluster. This cluster is focused on projects that develop methodologies for assessing chemical risk to human and non-human targets, and use case studies of environmental contamination to assess the health and environmental risks of specific chemicals.

 

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Last updated: 26.03.01