Defining an Affected Community

The long term management of radioactive waste creates site specific issues associated with storage and disposal facilities and the transportation of radioactive material. The resolution of these, sometimes controversial, issues requires an appreciation and accommodation of community issues and an essential element of these activities is an approach to defining the extent and composition of communities affected by radioactive waste management. <br><br>A community perspective can provide an insight into the relationship between a facility and people living in its vicinity. However, operationalising the community level perspective, to provide policymakers with a useful approach to critical local issues, requires us to discriminate between geographical and experiential elements of the concept of community and gets to the heart of the concept of community itself. Moreover, given the potentially fundamental impact of a radioactive waste facility in a locality, the distinction between the social and spatial elements of community is especially important in radioactive waste facility siting, as is unpacking the elements of the community experience