EVALUATION OF A MILITARY CBRN-HAZARD PREDICTION PROCEDURE WITH A LAGRANGIAN DISPERSION MODEL

A modelling framework for assessing the impact of CBRN-type incidents is currently being developed by the Royal Military Academy of Belgium and is hosted on the European Weather Cloud system. The framework has been designed to provide dispersion modelling capabilities for any worldwide release, benefiting from real-time access to the latest global forecasts from the Integrated Forecasting System of ECMWF. It implements a simple and fast military CBRN incidents model and a more complex and demanding Lagrangian dispersion model. The present study aims to improve the first basic model by comparing its results with the second more precise model for multiple pre-defined scenarios sampled from a real-scale experiment in Suffield, Canada in 2014. The evaluation criteria are defined, and their dependency on the inputs is discussed. The results show a good agreement with the theory of particle transport and dispersion modelling. This preliminary analysis opens the door to developing a more in-depth metamodel, which will provide a better risk assessment in emergency situations induced by the release of CBRN agents.