Welcome to the Natural Analogues Working Group website

17th NAWG Workshop
(Monday, 8th May to Friday, 12th May, 2023, Zadar, Croatia)

 Registration deadline Friday, 17th March 2023

After several false starts due to the COVID pandemic, the NAWG-17 workshop will finally be held in the historical city of Zadar, Croatia (https://zadar.travel/) and will be an opportunity to explore recent developments in the use of natural analogues in supporting safety cases for the disposal of radioactive waste. Currently, the aim is to discuss:

Radioactive waste form stability: including vitrified waste stability and spent fuel evolution

Repository near-field studies: including corrosion of copper and steel canisters and the long-term stability of the bentonite buffer.

Repository far-field studies: including self (or regional) analogues of potential repository sites and assessment of potential radionuclide releases to the host rock and biosphere

Stakeholder communication: including examples of approaches used to communicate different aspects of waste disposal to both technical and non-technical audiences

for some 2.5 days, followed by a half-day field trip to local archaeological analogue sites.

These are but a few examples and we are open to any suggestions to broaden the scope of the meeting - please email the NAWG chairman, Russell Alexander (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.), with your ideas and comments. Full details of the workshop (including the registration form) can be found here.

Zadar old town (image courtesy Bedrock Geosciences)

Setting sun over Zadar harbour (image courtesy Bedrock Geosciences)

NAWG-17 excursion site, Murter (image courtesy Bedrock Geosciences)