[ RadSafe ] Radiation Exposure Near Chernobyl Based on Analysis of Satellite Images of Tree Damage

[farbersa at optonline.net]

Hi all,
Related to my preceding post based on general recollections of the paper  
presented by Dr. Marving Goldman at an HPS annual meeting in 1987, I  
quickly found a few references to the early work of Dr. Goldman and a  
summary from one of his later papers about radiation dose to trees, tree  
damage, and tree regrowth as of 10 years after the Chernobyl accident.

Stewart Farber
Consulting Scientist
1285 Wood Ave.
Bridgeport, CT 06604
[203] 367-0791 [office]


=============
Goldman, M. and S. Ustin, "Radiation Exposure Near Chernobyl Based on  
Analysis of Satellite Images," Report to the U.S. Dept. of Energy,  
December, 1987.

Also From:
http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/members/1997/Suppl-6/goldman-full.html

The Russian Radiation Legacy: Its Integrated Impact and Lessons

Marvin Goldman

Professor of Radiobiology Emeritus, University of California, Davis,  
California
".....The most intense part of the radioactive footprint left a unique  
environmental marker. We were able to use satellite images to delineate  
the Chernobyl damage to the adjacent radiosensitive pine forest that runs  
8 to 10 km west of the Chernobyl reactor (5)]. Infrared images were taken  
weekly by the Landsat 4 Thematic Mapper Satellite as it passed over most  
of the Earth. Images from the Chernobyl region were used and by enhancing  
the infrared reflectance wavelengths for those bands corresponding to  
chlorophyll and moisture, it was possible to discern living from dead pine  
trees. Thus, from an altitude of about 700 km, a crude spatial and  
temporal map of the heaviest hit region was developed. Because pine trees  
have about a median lethal dose of 6 Gy (6), the images, beginning  
approximately 3 weeks after the accident, indicated a western swath of  
dying and dead trees, the so-called red forest. It was later learned that  
the map was correct but the doses were not. The trees actually had  
received doses of over 100 Gy (7), but regardless of the dose, the  
technique showed where the doses exceeded a 6-Gy detection threshold. Over  
the next 10 years, much of the damaged forest left standing has shown  
major regrowth and repair. The more resistant deciduous trees showed  
significantly less radiation damage than other types of trees."



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