The safe disposal of nuclear waste requires consideration of future developments in nature on the repository, like for instance glacifications. We show an approach by using a sophisticated database for a systematic consideration of such developments and their possible interactions.

The German search for a disposal site for high-level nuclear waste is in its first phase. In the so-called representative preliminary safety assessments the possible future evolutions of potential disposal sites will be developed from our understanding of their past evolution. Erosion processes connected to glaciations can reach especially deep and could threaten a repository, while being very hard to predict. This makes them important to the site selection process.

The German site selection procedure to identify a site for the disposal of high-level radioactive waste is ongoing. The current step of the procedure includes representative preliminary safety analyses, for which the methodology is described and a first insight on the implementation is given. We aim to provide a document to boost communication and discussion with the scientific community and the public, although the implementation is at an early stage and may be subject to numerous changes.