Purpose and Objectives
The purpose of this conference is to bring together nuclear industry representatives to share recent developments and lessons learned regarding the safety of nuclear installations with respect to external events, and to discuss methods to improve their resilience to external events. A special focus is the impact of climate change on the safety and resilience of nuclear installations. Many plants have been designed for loads resulting from natural phenomena, such as floods and high winds, based on analysis and interpretation of historical data. It is well known that climate change is affecting the severity, frequency, and other characteristics of many of these phenomena. Furthermore, changes in geological conditions (e.g., fluid injection to the Earth’s crust), land use, aircraft flight patterns, and addition of new industrial facilities lead to non-stationarity of external hazards. It is envisaged that nuclear installation owners/operators, technical service organizations, regulators, designers, research institutes and vendors (nuclear steam supply system suppliers) will attend the conference. Gathering experts from various segments of the nuclear sector for discussion and collaboration is one way the Agency promotes the exchange of scientific and technical information. This information can be used by all Member States in designing, licensing, operating, and decommissioning their nuclear installations.
The objective of the conference is to share experiences and discuss current and novel methods to evaluate the resilience and robustness of nuclear installations and radioactive waste disposal facilities against external events, particularly in the context of the changing climate. This will include existing facilities, as well as those under design, licensing, and construction. In this context nuclear facility is defined as any facility in which nuclear material is produced, processed, used, handled, stored or disposed of, if damage or interference with such facility could lead to the release of significant amounts of radiation or radioactive material. In general, nuclear installations and radioactive waste storage facilities are in separate categories. Nuclear installations are subject to authorization that is part of the nuclear fuel cycle, except facilities for the mining or processing of uranium ores or thorium ores and disposal facilities for radioactive waste. This definition includes: nuclear power plants; research reactors and any adjoining radioisotope production facilities; storage facilities for spent fuel; facilities for the enrichment of uranium; nuclear fuel fabrication facilities; conversion facilities; facilities for the reprocessing of spent fuel; facilities for the predisposal management of radioactive waste arising from nuclear fuel cycle facilities; and nuclear fuel cycle related research and development facilities. Radioactive waste storage facilities are meant for permanent storage and retrieval of radioactive waste.
Themes and Topics
The conference will be arranged into themes and topics. The Programme Committee will assemble sessions on specific topics based on the synopses received. The Committee developed the following major themes and subtopics, and encourages submittals aligned with these.
1. Identification and analysis of external hazards, consideration of uncertainties in hazard analyses, and events resulting from combined hazards
1.1. Site selection and site evaluation: risk-informed approaches, management of site investigations, and integration with non-safety criteria
1.2. Hazard analysis methods: scenario definition and time-dependent aspects
1.3. Climate change modelling: projection in time and identification of extreme and rare meteorological phenomena
1.4. Treatment of hazard combinations in safety assessments
1.5. Decision making with high uncertainties.
2. Impact of external hazards on nuclear installations and radioactive waste disposal facilities
2.1. Lessons learned from recent events: climate-related, seismic, and human induced, including data analysis and processing tools
2.2. Simulations of climate-related natural hazards (e.g., floods, hurricanes) and their impact on nuclear installations
2.3. Impacts on installation safety and operations from rising sea level, heat sink temperatures, water availability, abundance of biologic agents, extreme weather, etc
2.4. Lessons learned from considering climate change in the demonstration of safety of radioactive waste disposal facilities.
3. Safety features of innovative emergent reactor designs and their contribution to resilience
3.1. Adapting nuclear installations to changing environmental conditions
3.2. Safety assessment methods including risk indicators, robustness, resilience, safety targets, and defence-in-depth considerations
3.3. Resilience of the energy infrastructure, component and structure fragilities, human factors, deterministic and probabilistic approaches (including vital area identification methods)
3.4. Monitoring systems and techniques, including warning systems based on real-time data collection and short-term forecasts to aid operator actions
3.5. Use of artificial intelligence to assist operator decision making and contingency plans
3.6. Evaluation of safety of deeply embedded advanced reactors and associated construction and cost issues.
4. Post-event response
4.1. Potential modifications to emergency planning zones, facility and operator response, equipment additions to enhance resilience
4.2. Post-event recovery plans and public communication strategies
4.3. International collaboration in emergency preparedness and disaster response
4.4. Post-event recovery actions: walkdowns and informed-operation restart.
5. Risk-informed, performance-based approaches for safety assessments of nuclear installations against external events
5.1. Evaluation of resilience strategies: applying risk management tools to enhance nuclear safety
5.2. Evaluation of seismic base isolators from a safety perspective
5.3. Evaluation of new technologies, such as steel concrete plate construction, and their impact on nuclear installation safety assessments.
6. Regulatory matters related to enhancing nuclear installation resilience
6.1. Regulatory practices regarding external hazards affected by climate change
6.2. International obligations under the Convention on Nuclear Safety and resilience under the Vienna Declaration on Nuclear Safety to address topics related to climate change.
Key Deadlines and Dates
31 May 2025 Submission of Synopses
31 May 2025 Submission of Form B (together with Form A) through the InTouch+ platform
31 May 2025 Submission of Form C (together with Form A) through the InTouch+ platform
30 June 2025 Notification of acceptance of abstracts for oral or poster presentation
20– 24 October 2025 Conference dates
