NAWG News and Events

Announcement of the 18th NAWG Workshop (Tuesday, 9th to Thursday, 11th June, 2026, Manchester, UK)

 

NAWG logo ManU NWS gov logo

NAWG-18 venue, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, The University of Manchester, UK

UniManDeptImage courtesy Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, The University of Manchester

NAWG (Natural Analogue Working Group, chair Dr Russell Alexander), in association with Prof Kevin Taylor (University of Manchester, UK) and Prof Simon Norris (Nuclear Waste Services and University of Manchester, UK) and Dr Heini Reijonen (Geological Survey of Finland), is pleased to announce that the 18th NAWG workshop will be held in Manchester, UK, on 9-11th June, 2026.

The NAWG-18 workshop will be an opportunity to explore recent developments in the use of natural analogues (NA) in supporting safety cases (SC) for the disposal of radioactive wastes. Argumentation by use of analogy is well established in many fields including philosophy, biology, linguistics and law and most scientists are familiar with this approach and will have used it at some point in their career. If you are keen to learn more about how we employ this approach in radioactive waste disposal, why not come along?

More details on the programme coming up shortly!



Workshop on Natural Analogue Studies 2024 in Sapporo Japan

The 2024 workshop (18-19th September) took place successfully at the University of Hokkaido, providing a good overview of the application of NAs in repository safety cases. In addition, group discussions were held on how to improve the use of NA studies in future safety case development in Japan and on their application in stakeholder communications.


Further information on the outcome of the workshop will be provided by NUMO at a later date.

Sapporo universityNatural Analogue Workshop (Japan) 2024 venue, University of Hokkaido, Japan


NAWG-17 Proceedings have been published

 

NAWG-17 Workshop Proceedings published

 

The 17th NAWG workshop was organized by the Faculty of Mining, Geology and Petroleum Engineering, University of Zagreb, and the Natural Analogues Working Group (NAWG), 8-11 May 2023 in Zadar.

On the link NAWG-17 you can download proceedings of the workshop located at http://www.rgn.unizg.hr website. Proceedings prepared & published by:


University of Zagreb, Faculty of Mining, Geology and Petroleum
Engineering
Pierottijeva 6, p.p. 390
10000 Zagreb
The Republic of Croatia
www.rgn.unizg.hr 

See also presentation here online at NAWG website.

 

 zadar nawg 17 proceedings

 


NAWG-15 Proceedings have been published

 

NAWG-15 Workshop Proceedings published

 

NAWG-15 Proceedings have been published as an Bedrock Geosciences Technical Report at natural-analogues.com website. You can download yours here.

 

The 15th NAWG Workshop was held from Tuesday, 23rd to Thursday, 25th May, 2017 at the ÚJV laboratory, Řež, Prague in the Czech Republic.

On Friday 26th May there was a Field trip to SÚRAO’s Bukov URL in the former Rozna uranium mine.

The workshop was held with the kind support of  ÚJV Řež, a.s. and SÚRAO

 

Collection of medical images with hospital workers, nurses and interns, equipment and plastic surgery

 



Publication by a NAWG member

Tony Milodowski and his co-authors have described the salinity and redox evolution in a deep coastal groundwater system. The results indicate long-term stability in a deep hydrochemical system despite repeated glaciations and associated sea level changes throughout the Quaternary.

The document can be found in our document library, or downloaded directly pdf here (3.86 MB) . pdf
(3.86 MB)


Potential interaction of alkali leachates on repository performance

Posiva, Finland, have recently released a new assessment of the potential impact of alkali, cementitious leachates from their L/ILW repository on their SF repository. The new study, Posiva Working Report 2017-03 (which can be downloaded here), builds on information from several NA studies, including work in Jordan (Maqarin) and Northern Ireland (Scawt Hill). See also Posiva Working Report 2007-35 (here) and SKB Report 12-17 (here).