In 2021, BASE headed a short workshop called “What do we need to do to trust in models?” at the first edition of the safeND symposium conference (safeND: "Safety of Nuclear Waste Diposal“; Kock et al. 2021). Because of the broad interest people showed in the topic, three consecutive workshops on the topic of “Trust in Models” (TiM) were held between 2022 and 2025.  In this Open Letter, we will present the main points of discussion.

In this project, an assessment tool is developed to evaluate the applicability of AI methods in geosciences with respect to key geological activities in the site selection process. The results show that AI should not have any decision-making power when used in the site selection process. It is strongly recommended that all methods should be evaluated and validated iteratively and that the results should be made publicly available when applied to the key activities of the site selection process.

DECOVALEX is an international collaborative project aiming to develop models simulating coupled thermal–hydro–chemical–mechanical processes for use in performance and safety assessment of disposal systems for high-level radioactive waste. BASE actively contributes to Task F, which seeks to build confidence in performance assessment methodologies. This contribution describes recent BASE activities within Task F Salt of DECOVALEX-2023, including lessons learnt and possible future steps.