Why is palaeohydrogeology relevant for safety of radioactive waste repositories?
How groundwaters have changed in the last million (106) years is relevant to the safety of radioactive wastes in underground repositories (‘geological disposal’) because this mirrors the maximum time into the future for which the safety must be considered. The last 2 million years is known in geology as the Quaternary period – this is the time when cycles of the earth’s climate caused glacial periods or ‘ice ages’ in northern latitudes and alternations of wet (‘pluvial’) and dry (‘arid’) conditions in southern regions. The last ice age in northern Europe ended about 10,000 years ago. These fluctuations in climate are analogues for climate states in the future, though these will additionally have impacts from man’s activities (e.g. CO2 increases). By investigating how groundwaters have evolved in the past, palaeohydrogeology increases our confidence in modelling future groundwater movements: “Understanding the past is the key to predicting the future” Though the future evolution of clim
