Chemical cycles and health risks of some crustal nuclides
This dissertation describes and utilizes an approach for assessing long term health risks due to dispersion of naturally occurring radionuclide series and chemical toxins by normal and altered landscape chemical cycles. In particular, the health risks resulting from geochemical mobilizations of arsenic, lead, uranium and radium are considered. Based on a review of toxic waste hazard-measures and risk assessment studies, a general expression is developed for quantifying health risks imposed by the introduction of toxic materials to components of the total environment. This general measure deals with long term interactions within and between the internal human environment and the external biogeochemical environment. Health hazards are expressed as dose factors which convert environmental concentrations into a corresponding dose field (organ doses in rad for radionuclides; daily intake for toxic elements). The dose field is translated into population health risk expressed as lifetime cancer risk for carcinogens and average blood levels for other toxins. The landscape cell (or prism) is presented as a tool for visualizing and mapping toxic material cycles near the crustal surface. The overall process is incorporated in the GEOTOX code which is a geochemical systems model for describing the dynamics of crustal toxins within a landscape and the resulting health risks. GEOTOX is used to investigate the response of regional landscapes to increased soil and rock inventories of /sup 238/U, /sup 226/Ra, arsenic and lead. It is found that each decay series of element imposes a hazard by its behavior in the total environment that can not be quantified by a similar measure of toxicity.
- Research Organization:
- California Univ., Los Angeles (USA)
- OSTI ID:
- 5179840
- Resource Relation:
- Other Information: Thesis (Ph. D.)
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
63 RADIATION, THERMAL, AND OTHER ENVIRON. POLLUTANT EFFECTS ON LIVING ORGS. AND BIOL. MAT.
58 GEOSCIENCES
ARSENIC
ENVIRONMENTAL TRANSPORT
GROUND WATER
RADIONUCLIDE MIGRATION
HUMAN POPULATIONS
HEALTH HAZARDS
RADIATION HAZARDS
LEAD
RADIUM 226
SEDIMENTARY ROCKS
SOILS
URANIUM 238
COMPUTER CODES
EARTH CRUST
G CODES
GEOCHEMISTRY
MATHEMATICAL MODELS
MIGRATION
ACTINIDE ISOTOPES
ACTINIDE NUCLEI
ALKALINE EARTH ISOTOPES
ALPHA DECAY RADIOISOTOPES
CHEMISTRY
ELEMENTS
EVEN-EVEN NUCLEI
HAZARDS
HEAVY NUCLEI
HYDROGEN COMPOUNDS
ISOTOPES
MASS TRANSFER
METALS
NUCLEI
OXYGEN COMPOUNDS
POPULATIONS
RADIOISOTOPES
RADIUM ISOTOPES
ROCKS
SEMIMETALS
URANIUM ISOTOPES
WATER
YEARS LIVING RADIOISOTOPES
510301* - Environment
Terrestrial- Radioactive Materials Monitoring & Transport- Soil- (-1987)
520301 - Environment
Aquatic- Radioactive Materials Monitoring & Transport- Water- (1987)
510200 - Environment
Terrestrial- Chemicals Monitoring & Transport- (-1989)
520200 - Environment
Aquatic- Chemicals Monitoring & Transport- (-1989)
560171 - Radiation Effects- Nuclide Kinetics & Toxicology- Man- (-1987)
560306 - Chemicals Metabolism & Toxicology- Man- (-1987)
580400 - Geochemistry- (-1989)