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Conclusion
Abstract
Uncertainty about the scale of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, the manner of fallout deposition, and the dose effects from exposure contribute to the privatization of risks as externalities are experienced by impacted citizens as personal tragedies. Ironically, nuclear has been the crux of security, despite its deleterious effects producing the most profound insecurity within our most basic life processes, within the human genome itself.
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In order to estimate current external gamma doses to the population of the Russian territories contaminated as a result of the Chernobyl accident, absorbed gamma-dose rates in air (DR) were determined at typical urban and suburban locations. The study was performed in the western districts of the Bryansk Region within the areas of 30 settlements (28 villages and 2 towns) with the initial levels of 137Cs deposition ranging from 13 to 4340 kBqm(-2). In the towns, the living areas considered were private one-story wooden and stone houses. DR values were derived from in situ measurements performed with the help of gamma-dosimeters and gamma-spectrometers as well as from the results of soil samples analysis. In the areas under study, the values of DR from terrestrial radionuclides were 25+/-6, 24+/-5, 50+/-10, 32+/-6, 54+/-11, 24+/-8, 20+/-6, 25+/-8, and 18+/-5 nGyh(-1) at locations of kitchen gardens, dirt surfaces, asphalt surfaces, wooden houses, stone houses, grasslands inside settlement, grasslands outside settlement, ploughed fields, and forests, respectively. In 1996-2001, mean normalized (per MBqm(-2) of 137Cs current inventory in soil) values of DR from (137)Cs were 0.41+/-0.07, 0.26+/-0.13, 0.15+/-0.07, 0.10+/-0.05, 0.05+/-0.04, 0.48+/-0.12, 1.04+/-0.22, 0.37+/-0.07, and 1.15+/-0.19 microGyh(-1) at the locations of kitchen gardens, dirt surfaces, asphalt surfaces, wooden houses, stone houses, grasslands inside settlement, grasslands outside settlement, ploughed fields, and forests, respectively. The radiometric data from this work and the values of occupancy factors determined for the Russian population by others were used for the assessments of annual effective doses to three selected groups of rural population. The normalized (per MBqm(-2) 137Cs current ground deposition) external effective doses to adults from 137Cs ranged from 0.66 to 2.27 mSvy(-1) in the years 1996-2001, in accordance with professional activities and structures of living areas. For the areas under study, the average external effective doses from 137Cs were estimated to be in the range of 0.39-1.34 mSvy(-1) in 2001. The average external effective doses from natural radionuclides appeared to be lower than those from the Chernobyl fallout ranging from 0.15 to 0.27 mSvy(-1).