International guidelines are intended to protect human health with environmental and food quality by monitoring^{[ 2 ][ 4 ][ 5 ][ 6 ][ 7 ][ 8 ]}. They give a basis for the setting of national regulations and standards for water and food safety in support of public health, including protection against ionizing radiation.

This document provides

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  The way to obtain the data characterizing the different environmental compartments (atmosphere, waters, soils, biological components) and food to assess the human exposure to radionuclides naturally present or discharged by anthropogenic activities,

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  guidance on the environmental characterization needed for the prospective and/or retrospective dose assessment methods of public exposure,

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  guidance to nuclear installations staff in charge of the preparation of radiological assessments in support of permit or authorization applications and National Authorities’ officers in charge of the assessment of public doses for the purposes of determining gaseous or liquid effluent radioactive discharge authorizations,

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  information to the public on the parameters used to conduct a dose assessment of the population living at the vicinity of a nuclear facility. It is important that the dose assessment process be transparent, and that assumptions are clearly understood by stakeholders who can participate in, example, the selection of habits to be taken into account.

Generic mathematical models used for the assessment of radiological human exposure are presented to identify the parameters that shall be monitored in order to select the "best estimates", from the set of measurement results, of these parameter values. More complex models are often used that require the knowledge of supplementary parameters.

The reference and limit values are not included in this document.