Speaker
Description
Having in mind that the sole purpose of an on-site inspection is to clarify whether a nuclear explosion has been carried out in violation of the CTBT, the inspection team applies an information based search to direct the conduct of inspection activities for the collection of information. Such an approach requires that one or more polygons, i.e., regions of any shape and size that enclose a feature or area of interest within the inspection area, are identified by the inspection team based on a systematic analysis of all information available or absent at that time. This analysis leads to specific proposals of inspection activities with the objective of collecting additional information that will increase or lower the interest in these polygons. The application of an information based search during IFE14 resulted in the search area being narrowed down to two locations where increasingly more intrusive inspection techniques were used. As the scientifically credible and realistic scenario was a priori not known to the inspection team, this presentation summarises the systematic search as applied during IFE14 – with examples of the prioritization and decision-making process when the analysis of information presented options for the use of the available inspection techniques.
