Feedback experiences from Fukushima and Chernobyl situations have clearly shown the importance of involving local stakeholders living in contaminated territories for the rehabilitation of their daily life. In this context, this paper aims to better address the role of radiological protection experts in the recovery phase of post-nuclear accident situation, in mainly relying on the analysis of local initiatives implemented in the Fukushima Prefecture following March 2011. In the first part, this paper highlights the various challenges faced by the population living in contaminated territories, i.e., rehabilitation of the living conditions, ensuring a long-term radiological monitoring, developing public health programs. In a second part, this paper discusses to which extent radiological protection experts can help local population to address these challenges, particularly through the implementation of co-expertise processes and the associated ethical issues and values they should embody. The last part of this paper particularly focuses on two current challenges at stake in the Fukushima Prefecture: the dissemination of the co-expertise process to all affected communities, as well as the sustainability of these approaches over time.

Measurement of individual radiation dose is crucial for planning protective measures after nuclear accidents. The purpose of this article is to explain the various initiatives taken after the TEPCO Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident, including the D-shuttle project wherein residents from affected areas wore a personal dosimeter to measure their own external exposure. The experience in Fukushima revealed several issues such as gaining residents’ trust and ensuring appropriate communication of the measured data. The D-shuttle project also revealed that obtaining individual dose measurement data had 2 purposes, as the information obtained was to be utilized by the residents for self-protection and by the authorities for deriving the dose distribution of the population to aid in designing large-scale protection measures. The lessons learned are that both the residents and the authorities need to understand and share the meaning of individual dose measurements and the measurement results must be used with due respect for the residents’ privacy and other concerns.

In the first paper of this series, we showed that the ratio c of individual dose to ambient dose did not change with time in Date City, Fukushima Prefecture, after the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident. The purpose of the present paper, the second in a series, is to estimate the lifetime doses of the Date City residents, based on continuous glass badge monitoring data, extrapolated by means of the ambient-dose-rate reduction function obtained from the airborne monitoring data. As a result, we found that the external exposure contribution to the mean additional lifetime dose of residents living in Date City is not expected to exceed 18 mSv. In addition, effects of decontamination on the reduction of individual doses were not evident. This method of combining individual doses and the ambient doses, as developed in this study, has made it possible to predict with reasonable certainty the lifetime doses of residents who continue to live in this radiologically contaminated area.

This paper explores how health concerns of populations living in contaminated areas following radiological accidents can be considered in developing health surveillance. The research was performed in the framework of the SHAMISEN project, and aimed at identifying the impacts on, and challenges associated with, living and social conditions of affected populations. These objectives were achieved through the analysis of specific Case Studies in different situations observed after the Chernobyl accident (Belarus and Norway) and the activities carried out after the Fukushima accident. It incorporates an analysis of testimonies of medical experts and local stakeholders from contaminated territories in Japan within two Case Studies as well as through a dedicated workshop jointly organised with Fukushima Medical University in Japan in March 2016. The analysis addresses the following topics:Thus, this paper outlines key lessons learned from each of these topics, by providing tangibles examples from the analysis of the various Case Studies.