Environmental and Social Impact Assessment for a nuclear power plant

Context and challenges

Turkish Government and Japanese Government have come to an agreement to build a 4400 MW nuclear power plant near the city of Sinop. The project will consist of 4 1100 Mw Atmea-1 reactors, and the first unit is planned to start operations by 2023.

The owners of the project is a consortium which includes major companies in the nuclear and industrial sectors.

In order to determine the data baseline of the region, the consortium has appointed Assystem Envy to conduct an Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) in line with local and international standards and the regulations.

Project scope

Physical Environment Baseline Studies including: air-quality, odor control, erosion, soil quality and classification, geology, hydrology, hydrogeology, groundwater piezo metric studies and quality, flow rate and fresh water quality, sea water sediment quality
Human Environment Baseline Studies including noise and vibration measurements, electromagnetic radiation (EMR), archeology and cultural heritage, landscape, land designation, traffic, navigation, waste management, land occupation, resources and ownership, water resources and water use, marine economical resources and socio-economics
Biological Baseline Studies including terrestrial and marine flora and fauna
Radiological Baseline Studies (Baseline gamma radiation measurements ambient dose rate) including, air quality monitoring (Aerosol sampling and radiological analysis), radiological monitoring of rainwater, soil, freshwater, freshwater sediment, seawater, seawater sediment, sea fishes, shellfish, marine bio indicators, freshwater fishes, fresh water bio indicators, terrestrial bio indicators, food production

Results

Project risks minimisation, thanks to the identification of direct and cumulative impacts
Provision of an understanding of the physical, chemical, biological and social environment, to assess the proposed construction project
Data gathering enabling to define site technical parameters
Obtaining site licensing