IAEA-SM-367/13/02 A GIS-BASED SUPPORT SYSTEM FOR DECLARATION AND VERIFICATION POUCET, A, CONTINI, S., BELLEZZA, F. European Commission, Joint Research Centre Institute for the Protection and Security of Citizens (IPSC) Non Proliferation and Nuclear Safeguards Unit 21020 Ispra (VA), Italy Abstract With the coming into force of the Additional Protocol (INFCIRC/540) States are facing problems of collecting and organising the large amount of requested information on nuclear related activities in a structured and coherent way. On the other hand, IAEA has to analyse submitted declarations using inhouse and open source information in order to draw conclusions about both the non-diversion of nuclear material and the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in a State. The use of advanced information technology, in particular Geographical Information Systems, Satellite monitoring, and Global Positioning System can support both declaration and verification activities. SIT (Site Investigation Tool), is a software package aiming to support declaration and verification activities. This paper will describe the main system functionality of SIT and its present status of development, as well as the advantages deriving from its use by both the States and the Agency 1. INTRODUCTION Within the NPT treaty member states with comprehensive safeguards agreements take the obligation to declare all their nuclear activities according to the INFCIRC/153 protocol, which refers to nuclear facilities and locations outside facilities (LOF). Declaration concerns nuclear material accountancy data (e.g. movements, inventories) and design information for nuclear installation (e.g. layout, processes, drawings, procedures) [1]. The additional protocol INFCIRC/540 requires the declaration of nuclear fuel cycle-related R&D activities not involving nuclear material, mines and concentration plants, source material, material exempted, and the import/export of equipment of nuclear interest [2 ]. IAEA has to verify whether States declarations conform to protocols requirements and whether there is no evidence of any undeclared activity, facility or material on the State s territory [3]. The verification process makes use of independent information available from different sources, i.e.: The inspector activity, e.g. inspection campaigns, environmental sampling; Open source information, e.g. press (newspapers, magazines), scientific literature; Databases managed by specialised institutes Satellite imagery In house knowledge, e.g. databases available internally to the Agency, technical expert knowledge on nuclear fuel cycle installations; Remote surveillance of the facility; Both the States and the Agency have to deal with a large amount of information of different type, ranging from text, numerical data, images, CAD drawings, maps, etc. A relevant percentage of this information is spatially referenced, i.e. it can be characterised by their location on the earth. It follows that a Geographical Information System (GIS) is the suitable software environment for transforming the large volume of spatially related data into usable information. GIS are designed to accept and process large volumes of spatial data from a variety of sources and to efficiently store, retrieve, manipulate, analyse and display these data in a unified context and according to user defined specifications [4].
The use of a GIS offers several advantages. Apart from the topographic support, which facilitates both declaration and verification activities, the automatic transfer of declared information including maps, drawing and any other document, allows the Agency to avoid the digitization phase and to perform the quality control almost automatically. This paper contains the description of the SIT software package (Site Investigation Tool) for supporting both declaration and verification activities in nuclear safeguards. Acknowledging that part of the information of interest is already available on different databases (e.g. declarations made according to the traditional protocol), SIT has been conceived as an integrator of multimedia information, adding the spatial dimension to data. The current version of SIT offers the user all tools to make declarations and to manage the information represented in a large variety of formats, from text to images, stored in different medium and located in different places. Information analysis, an important aspect of the project, is under development. SIT is based on a low cost desktop GIS platform. The commercial product used is ESRI ArcView for Windows NT with extensions for image and spatial analysis. Other commercial products are used to deal with documents of any format. 2. THE SIT CONCEPTUAL APPROACH FOR DECLARATION AND VERIFICATION Figure 1 represents the conceptual scheme of the verification activity defined for the development of SIT. The information submitted under the safeguards agreements is organised into three interconnected models: Topological, Functional, and Operational [5]. The topological model contains information about the site location on the country map, the site layout, facility layout, buildings and MBA. Each geographical element is associated with a set of attributes for their unique identification. The functional/technical model describes the main process functions in the plant, flow diagrams, material accounting procedures and related measurement points, input and output streams, as well as the major technical characteristics of plant systems and units. The operational model contains life cycle related information, operational history and safeguards related measures and control, e.g. material accountancy, surveillance, etc. Other data, referred to as Auxiliary data, are independent of the declared information, in that they are used to better describe the topological model, e.g. geographical and thematic maps of countries, site access points, etc. The declared information is subject to a set of completeness and correctness controls in order to submit a consistent declaration, subsequently transmitted to the Agency. Since the whole declaration is in digital form, the transmission may also be done through the Web using encryption methods. The controlling Agency using SIT can import the declaration avoiding any digitization operation, an activity that would be rather time consuming if the declaration were on paper. On the declaration as a whole, the Agency s quality control procedure is applied to verify the conformity of what has been declared with the agreed protocols. In case of incompleteness, error or loss of sufficient detail, additional requests are made to the State. Then for each model, i.e. topological, functional and operational, the verification is performed using previously submitted declarations, open source information and in-house knowledge. For instance, satellite images and the cartography of the area around a site are used to verify the declared topological model, whereas information on Nuclear Fuel Cycle is used to check the functional model, and so on [6]. In order to draw conclusions about the declaration it may be possible that additional information is needed from the State or from other observations. The main high level functionality that addressed the development of SIT are briefly listed below: Representation of a nuclear site data in a geographically oriented data base; Capability to deal with multimedia data, e.g. text, images, video in several data formats; Capability means to import and explore site maps in various formats (CAD drawings, digital cartography, scanned pictures, raster and vector maps); Capability to perform spatial analysis; Determining sizes of buildings and structures; Provide tools to prepare and export INFCIRC/540 declarations, assuring the full compatibility with the IAEA Protocol Reporter software;
Provide access to external databases, e.g. Oracle, Informix, Sybase, MS-Access using SQL statements and access to open source information via Internet; Compare declared site maps with satellite images to detect anomalies; Compare site maps declared at different times to detect differences; Provide capability to run external models for data analysis e.g. material data accountancy, air dispersion, material flow graph generation and produce results in graphical form; Provide means to import satellite images from different sources and to perform image analysis operations, e.g. geo-reference, rectification, feature extraction, mosaiking; Allow determining absolute position in 2-D co-ordinates of buildings and structures so that an inspector using a Global Positioning System (GPS) can determine his/her position in the site; Provide possibility to construct a 3-D representation of buildings and structures of the site. Allow easy customisation of the tool by the end user; Use, as much as possible, of commercial of the shelf software (COTS); System running on a desktop computer under Windows. INFCIRC/153 INFCIRC/540 AUXILIARY DATA DECLARED SITE MODEL TOPOLOGICAL FUNCTIONAL OPERATIONAL DECLARATION EXPORT COMPLETENESS AND CORRECTNESS CHECK SUBMISSION VERIFICATION IMPORT Info on NFC technologies COMPLETENESS AND CORRECTNESS CHECK DECLARED SITE MODEL TOPOLOGICAL FUNCTIONAL OPERATIONAL INFERRED SITE MODEL TOPOLOGICAL FUNCTIONAL OPERATIONAL Routine inspections Remote surveillance Environmental sampling Satellite images FINAL STATEMENT SITE ASSESSMENT COHERENCE CHECK Open source information Other observations POTENTIAL PROLIFERATION PATHS FIG. 1. Conceptual architecture of SIT for declaration and verification
3. THE IMPLEMENTATION OF SIT The designed software architecture can be subdivided into three main parts, namely: 1) The graphical user interface based on a commercial desktop GIS, in which data can be organised according to the topological, functional and operational models. ESRI ArcView for Windows has been adopted [7] with some extensions to deal with satellite images, CAD files and to perform spatial analysis. 2) A set of tools embedded into the GIS for: accessing, retrieving and managing data from local and remote databases; performing data analysis, completeness and consistency checks; image analysis; spatial analysis; retrieval and management of documents from declaration and open source; opening documents with different formats. 3) A set of databases on: declarations made according to INFCIRC/540; declarations made according to INFCIRC/153; maps and satellite images; inspection reports and environmental sampling data; nuclear fuel cycle (NFC) generic knowledge; documents from open sources (e.g. via Internet). 3.1 SIT for declaration Modules dealing with the declaration are organised as represented in figure 2. Other modules may be added in the future to address specific user requirements. A brief description of each of them is given. Map scaling INFCIRC/540 Input Check Export Declaration to CD or printer Geographical Information System User interface Theme management Document Management SQL Query Module Documents INFCIRC/540 Other databases INFCIRC/153 FIG. 2. Simplified architecture of SIT for declaration Geographical database. The Geographical database is the main user interface through which maps, attributes, any type of document, and any model can be managed. Three different levels of maps can be used, the First contains the map of the World (or part of it according to the user needs), the Second
the map of a Country, and the third the Site layout. The map at a given level, say j, can be used to graphically represent the results of the analysis of data represented at level j +1, as well as to open the j + 1 map level. For instance, when clicking on a country in the World map SIT displays the selected country map with all its thematic layers; when clicking on the location of a site in a country map, SIT shows the site layout map and all associated themes. For simplicity, in figure 2 databases on maps and attributes are not explicitly represented. Themes are thematic maps (layers) representing particular features of interest. Different thematic maps can be combined (overlay operation) to enhance the representation of the geographical information. Each theme is composed of graphical objects (features). A graphical object may be a point, a line or a polygon and represents e.g. a site fence, a building, a road, etc. Each object is associated with records of the Attribute database. Attributes are alphanumerical data and information that describe the graphical feature, e.g. attributes of a building may be its name, and geometrical dimensions, the number of floors, its use and content. Within SIT the basic thematic layers linked with the Attribute database are site fence, buildings, facilities, units, components, MBA, KMP, surveillance and sealing devices. The user may add new themes to represent objects of interest, e.g. entrance points, environmental sampling points, and so on. Any object can further be described by means of documents, images, etc, and can be linked with external databases as represented in the following figure. Documents Attributes Shortcut.lnk User s applications GIS Object Digital cartography Raster and Vector Maps Local and Remote Databases Aerial photos, Satellite images, Camera photos FIG. 3. Schematic representation of information that can be associated to any graphical object Map scaling module. Generally, site maps are available on paper; thus, they must be scanned and geo-referenced before being used for declaration and verification. More specifically, the State is requested to send a site map and its geographical co-ordinates to allow the Agency to correctly identify the location on the country map; this means that only the co-ordinates of one point are requested. With such information it is possible to set the scale of the map, i.e. to allow measuring distances and calculating areas. Document Management module. This module is used to associate any type of documents, e.g. text, maps, photos, satellite images, video, to any graphical object. The need to deal with such a large amount and variety of documents calls for the use of a Document Management System (DMS) embedded in the GIS. In fact the integration of a DMS with a GIS makes the data storage and retrieval particularly simple and flexible. For example, it would be easy to
select an object in a theme and then to find all documents related to it, or to select all documents that are associated to objects resulting from a spatial query, e.g. located within a specified distance. Within SIT documents can be classified according to user-defined criteria, e.g. documents dealing with declarations made according to 153 or 540 protocols, open source documents, inspector reports, and so on. Commercial applications software such as Word, Wordpad, Acrobat Reader, ACDSee, Excel, and so on can be used to open documents with a large variety of formats. Documents on Internet can also be accessed using Internet Explorer or Netscape Communicator. The user can easily use his / her preferred tools to open documents. This module can also be used to run external users applications. Theme module. Another possible source of data is represented by vector maps and CAD drawings, e.g. P&ID of a plant, the layout of the different floors of a building, and so on. Supported formats are, besides ArcView shape files (SHP) and ArcInfo coverages, the Autocad DWG and DXF, and the Micro Station Intergraph DGN. Chain of themes can also be generated to describe a system up to the desired level of detail. Query module. The aim of the Query module is to allow the user to access and retrieve data from local/remote databases through the execution of SQL statements linked to objects on maps and drawings. All databases supported by the ODBC drivers (e.g. MS-Access, Oracle, Informix, Sybase) can be accessed. A list of SQL can be associated to any graphical object. The execution of an SQL statement returns the content of the selected records, which can be represented either as a table for further data analysis, or as a chart, or as a text document. INFCIRC/540 declaration module. This module deals with the declaration according to the additional protocol and has a look and feel similar to that of the of the Protocol Reporter [8]. Articles containing the location and the building fields can be associated to sites and buildings, whereas all others to the country map. Thus, clicking on a given building in a nuclear site, the associated articles are selected and displayed. Consequently, there is no need to work with the Reference field: its content is automatically generated. Checks on correctness and completeness of the declaration are also performed. Export module. By means of this module the declaration is exported for transmission to the agency. The user can select the information (table, maps, drawings, documents, etc.) to export among those available in the system. 3.2 SIT for verification The SIT architecture for verification is obtained from that of declaration by adding modules for: Importing declarations and performing quality controls; Georeferencing raster and vector files; Performing image analysis, spatial analysis, and data analysis. Import module. The Import module of SIT imports INFCIRC/540 declarations prepared with SIT for declaration or with the Protocol Reporter software. It can easily be realised that if the declaration is made using SIT, not only the digitisation can be avoided, but part of the quality control may be performed during the declaration process, thus reducing the probability of clarification questions. Georeference module. The Georeference module offers the user the possibility to apply different methods depending on the available data. The map can be geographically referenced when Ground Control Points (GCP) are available. GCP are points of the site area for which geographical coordinates are known e.g. an inspector with the GPS may easily take GCP co-ordinates. When a geo-referenced satellite image of the area of interest is available then it is also possible to take from it the GCP necessary to georeference the site map. The SIT module to georeference maps is based on the ESRI Image Analysis extension.
Image analysis module. For the purpose of verification this module allows the user to easily perform other useful operations, such as: Import several image formats e.g. BMP, BSQ, BIL and BIP, CADRG, CIB, ERDAS, JPEG, NITF, TIFF, Sun raster files and others; Perform image enhancement; Perform change detection for continuous and thematic imagery; Perform multispectral categorisations for land cover mapping and data extraction; Mosaic imagery from different sources and different resolutions. In the verification process the Image analysis module can be used e.g. to compare the site layout map with a satellite image in order to identify possible discrepancies between the declaration and the real situation. Figure 4 is a screen shot of SIT showing the declared map of a site superimposed to the IKONOS image. The site map has been georeferenced with GCP taken from the image, and then its background colour has been made transparent. FIG. 4. Result of the verification of a site map against an IKONOS satellite image In this figure the declared buildings are represented with semi-transparent polygons, whereas mismatches between the map and the image are represented with colourful polygons. More precisely, yellow is assigned to unclear objects, red to undeclared buildings, green to buildings that are represented in the map but not in the satellite image, and blue for those that are in the image but not in the map. The colourful polygons represent the point of the map that need further investigation through site inspections. 4. ADVANTAGES OFFERED BY THE SIT APPROACH The SIT system represents a powerful and attractive tool which facilitate both declaration and verification activities. It offers several advantages, among which: Automatic loading of the geographical co-ordinates of sites; Representation of information on maps;
Link the declarations to maps, with consequent query from maps; Automatic generation of the content of the Reference field of the additional protocol; Possibility to describe any graphical object at any level of detail; Easy access to data stored into local/remote databases supported by ODBC; Lower probability to make mistakes or to submit an incomplete declaration (due to the crosschecking between the topological model and the declaration) resulting in a reduction of clarification questions from the Agency; Due to the total compatibility of SIT with the Protocol Reporter, declarations made with the latter can be imported and associated to the topological model; Declarations made with SIT can be automatically imported for verification, including maps, themes and other associated documents, thus avoiding the digitalisation phase; Since all the information is in digital form, the submission may be done via Internet using appropriate data security techniques; Possibility to perform spatial analysis in addition to the conventional data analysis; Representation of the results of data analysis in graphical form on maps or as charts; Comparison of satellite images with declared site layout maps; Comparison of images/maps taken at different time to detect changes. 5. FURTHER DEVELOPMENTS The current version of SIT contains all modules for managing declared information of any type: attributes, texts, images, videos, etc. Data and information can be stored into local or remote databases. The current version of SIT allows the user to generate the topological and functional models and to make Additional Protocol declarations. It is also possible to check declared site infrastructures using satellite images. The software is at an advanced stage of development. The software development work will continue with the consolidation of the current version and with the development of the analysis modules. In parallel it will be tested on real cases. 6. REFERENCES [1 ] INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC ENERGY AGENCY, The Structure and Content of Agreements between the Agency and States Required in Connection with the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, IAEA INFCIRC 153, June 1972 [2] INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC ENERGY AGENCY, Model Protocol Additional to the Agreement(s) between State(s) and the International Atomic Energy Agency for the Application of Safeguards, IAEA INFCIRC/540, Vienna 1997. [3] COOLEY,J.N., Information Requirements Under an Additional Protocol, Int. Seminar on Integrated Information Systems, IAEA, Vienna, 10-14 April 2000. [4] MAGUIRE, D. J., GOODCHILD M.F., RHIND D.W., Geographical Information Systems. Principles and Applications. Longman Scientific & Technical, Longman House, Harlow, England, 1991. [5] POUCET, A., CONTINI, S., BELLEZZA, F., Mapping of Nuclear Sites Using Commercial Satellite Imagery, IAEA SP-1 Task 98/IIS-06, 3 rd Intermediate Report, January, 2001. [6] CHITUMBO, K., The Role of Diverse Sources of Information in Safeguards, Seminar on Strengthening of Safeguards: Integrating the New and the Old, Dresden, Germany, 9-11 May 2000, EUR 19587 EN. [7] ESRI, Using ArcView GIS, The Geographic Information System for Everyone, User manual, ESRI Publication, 1996 [8] INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC ENERGY AGENCY, Guidelines and Format for Preparation and Submission of Declarations Pursuant to Articles 2 & 3 of the Model Protocol. IAEA, Vienna, 1999.