Research

The CRREI is providing and growing a network throughout Australia to develop collaborative research grant opportunities. This builds on the success of the Aust. Cu-U Research Hub, which focused on energy minerals and critical minerals. CRREI has now expanded it's research and education across multiple sectors. 

Exemplars

In 2020, the CRREI commenced a collaboration with CSIRO, the South Australian Government, and ANSTO, initiating a radiation research project into bush food biosphere modelling. This data is particularly important for use in future environmental impact statements and potential landscape remediation strategies.

The CRREI continues to expand research into low dose radio-biological effects such as radon effects in the lung, a particularly important topic for underground mining operations. This is a 5 year collaboration between CRREI, Flinders University, the Northern Ontario School of Medicine, and the Ontario Nuclear Innovation Institute

  • Modelling human exposure to radiation
    Modelling human exposure to radiation

    Commencing in 2020, the University of ÌÇÐÄvlog¹ÙÍø and CSIRO are jointly funding a PhD student to undertake the research necessary to develop a human exposure model.

    This project is conceptualising and modelling human exposure to sources of radiation in arid and semi-arid Zones of Australia.

    Indigenous communities in Australia are exposed to both natural and anthropogenic sources of radiation while they traverse the landscape.

    Natural sources are due to the naturally occurring radioisotopes in soil, rock, water and air. Anthropogenic sources may include uranium and rare earth mining (for example, mine areas and tailings) and the residual above-background radioactivity from past nuclear bomb tests (for example, Maralinga).

    There is currently no quantitative tool available to assess the total dose from exposure to such sources of radiation for Indigenous communities because of their unique relationship with the landscape. Our research will deliver such a tool.

    The goals are to:

    • quantify the annual radiation dose from exposure to sources of radiation 
    • have applicability to arid and semi-arid zone environments
    • capture Indigenous peoples’ exposure pathways in the natural landscape
    • collect biosphere data representing radio-isotope uptake by native food products (‘bush-tucker’). 

    This study is engaging with Indigenous communities (including Maralinga Tjarutja Corporation) and co-developing a conceptual model of their food systems and how they interact with the natural environment. This will be foundational work that will underpin any further developments of the human exposure model (biosphere model) and exposure risk assessments to sources of radiation (n