The spallation process is a cascade of nuclear reactions induced by medium-energy hadrons, notably protons, which impinge in a suitable material as accelerated particles. A main outcome of that cascade is a shower of medium and high-energy neutrons, which can be used for irradiation purposes or to feed a subcritical reactor. The neutron production is accompanied by the generation of a broad set of radioactive products, which presents specific problems of radiological protection and decay heat removal. The nominal heat load is another point of concern, because of the very high power densities produced in the proton beam energy deposition in the interaction region. All these phenomena are taken into account in this paper in order to set up an integral and coherent task flowchart in order to guide the design of spallation sources. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.