Consequences of the Chernobyl accident for the natural and human environments
- Lawrence Livermore National Lab., CA (United States)
- Risoe National Lab., Roskilde (Denmark)
- Russian Inst. of Agricultural Radiology and Agroecology (Russian Federation)
- Scientific and Technical Centre of the RIA `Pripyat` (Ukraine)
- Swedish Univ. of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala (Sweden)
In the ten years since the Chernobyl accident, an enormous amount of work has been done to assess the consequences to the natural and human environment. Although it is difficult to summarize such a large and varied field, some general conclusions can be drawn. This background paper includes the main findings concerning the direct impacts of radiation on the flora and fauna; the general advances of knowledge in the cycling of radionuclides in natural, seminatural and agricultural environments; some evaluation of countermeasures that were used; and a summary of the human radiation doses resulting from the environmental contamination. although open questions still remain, it can be concluded that: (1) at high radiation levels, the natural environment has shown short term impacts but any significant long term impacts remain to be seen; (2) effective countermeasures can be taken to reduce the transfer of contamination from the environment to humans but these are highly site specific and must be evaluated in terms of practicality as well as population does reduction; (3) the majority of the doses have already been received by the human population. If agricultural countermeasures are appropriately taken, the main source of future doses will be the gathering of food and recreational activities in natural and seminatural ecosystems.
- Research Organization:
- Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
- DOE Contract Number:
- W-7405-ENG-48
- OSTI ID:
- 391712
- Report Number(s):
- UCRL-JC-125028; CONF-960404-3; ON: DE96050495; TRN: 96:028399
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: International conference on one decade after Chernobyl: summing up the radiological consequences of the accident, Vienna (Austria), 8-12 Apr 1996; Other Information: PBD: Jul 1996
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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