Re: Radiation Air Quality

[Franz Schoenhofer <schoenho@via.at>]

At 07:47 04.08.2000 -0500, you wrote:
>Does anyone know where to obtain information on the radiation air quality in
>other countries, such as Russia, Saudi Arabia, etc?
>

Thomas,

I do not know what "radiation air quality" is, but I suppose that you mean
concentration of radionuclides in air and aerosols.

Well, it depends. A clear answer is not possible. Using sophisticated up to
date and state of the art instruments you will find everywhere on earth
radon daughter products in aerosols. You will find fission products, the
amount depending on the location. In Europe you will sometimes find Cs-137
from resuspension of deposits after the Chernobyl accident or from the
atmospheric nuclear bomb tests of the fifties and sixties. In the Southern
Hemisphere, where only relatively few atmospheric tests were conducted at
Mururoa and Fangataufa, using relatively low-yield bombs, the environmental
contamination from fallout is by far lower than in the Northern Hemisphere.
This is valid also for the natural occuring radionuclides tritium and C-14,
which were additionally artificially produced by atmospheric nuclear tests. 

Sometimes fission products are found in air at levels, which confirm the
sensitivity of our measurement equipment, but are present in such low trace
concentrations only that they are absolutely negligible. Also emissions of
I-131 are sometimes observed, which may origin from nuclear power plants
and as well from nuclear medicine.

Since you mention explicitely Russia and Saudi Arabia: When you look at a
map, you will see, that Russia is a really vast country. You cannot expect
that the air contamination will be uniform, since resuspension depends on
the deposited amount of radionuclides, and we know, how uneven deposition
is even in small countries like Austria. Talking about Saudi Arabia, I do
not know, whether routine surveillance of aerosols is done. I do not have
any information, but from the world wide literature it is obvious, that
Saudi Arabia lies within a region which was not affected at all by the
Chernobyl accident. Therefore you can expect that practically no artificial
radionuclides will be present in aerosols there. 

If you really are interested in more information about radionuclide
concentrations in air, please contact me privately on my e-mail address,
which is my private one. Give me the background of your question and I will
try to give you information about aerosol-radioactivity in different
countries or at least I can tell you some relevant web-sites. Please allow
some time, because I had yesterday surgery on my right hand and I will not
return to work for about two weeks.

Best regards,

Franz


Franz Schoenhofer
Habicherg. 31/7
A-1160 Vienna
Austria
Tel.: +43-1-495 53 08
Fax.: same number
mobile phone: +43-664-338 0 333
e-mail: schoenho@via.at


Please note my new telephone number at my office!

Office:
Ministerialrat Dr. Franz Schoenhofer
Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and Water Management
Radiation Protection Department (BMLFUW I/8 U)
Radetzkystr. 2
A-1031 Vienna
AUSTRIA

phone: -43-1-71100-4458
fax: -43-1-7122331

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