H. Dederichs, J. Pillath, R. Lennartz, P. Hill, R. Hille
May 2, 2013
Abstract
In investigations of the long-term development of the population dose in the highly contaminated regions of the Commonwealth of Independence States it was found that the external dose has not decreased as strongly as expected since 1992. Further investigations have shown that, contrary to expectations, no linear correlation can be observed between soil contamination and measured area dose rate. As a contribution towards clarifying these issues, the area dose rate and the soil contamination including the plant fraction were investigated in the Korma district, Belarus. It was found that it is necessary to cover and average over larger areas in order to determine from ground contamination the long-term development of the external dose commitment. This means that for this purpose the introduction of an “effective” surface contamination (sum of mineral and organic contamination components) is necessary. The phenomena observed are described in a model, which permits an analytical calculation of the contamination profile in soil taking migration and transfer effects into account. The differences observed between the measured soil contamination and the resulting external doses or the directly measured dose rate can be explained by the proposed model. Moreover, their long-term development can be calculated. The results show that a time decade after the accident the biological part of the “effective” soil contamination becomes dominant and cannot be neglected.