Simulating the Potential Impacts of Nuclear Power Plant Accident for Northern Vietnam

Abstract

The Fangchenggang nuclear power plant has been built very close to the Vietnam boundary. This is done to generate potential impacts for Northern Vietnam if nuclear power plant accident occurs. This study applied the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model to construct the meteorological data at horizontal mesh resolution of 1 km as input for the FLEXible PARTicle dispersion model (FLEXPART). The assumption of the nuclear accident at Fangchenggang Power Plant is considered with setup parameter of the Fukushima accident. The results show a similar in simulating the 137Cs concentration from 03 out of 24 experiments configured with different parameterisation schemes of the WRF model. However, the dry and wet deposition of radioactive 137Cs are significantly different. It is especially illustrated that if the accident occurs, then almost all provinces in northern Vietnam are affected. The high concentration of radioactive pollutants may be intensively transported from Fangchenggang nuclear power plant to Vietnam under the domination of wind fields in the wintertime. The maximum values of the total effective dose rate could reach up to over 10 mSvh-1 of dose rate during 50 to 100 hours. Importantly, the maximum effective dose continues to be observed during 145 to 205 hours.