Simplified dynamic models have been developed for predicting the concentrations of radiocesium, radiostrontium, and I in surface waters and freshwater fish following a large-scale radioactive fallout. The models are intended to give averaged estimates for radionuclides in water bodies and in fish for all times after a radioactive fallout event. The models are parameterized using empirical data collected for many lakes and rivers in Belarus, Russia, Ukraine, UK, Finland, Italy, The Netherlands, and Germany. These measurements span a long time period after fallout from atmospheric nuclear weapons testing and following the Chernobyl accident. The models thus developed were tested against independent measurements from the Kiev Reservoir and Chernobyl Cooling Pond (Ukraine) and the Sozh River (Belarus) after the Chernobyl accident, from Lake Uruskul (Russia), following the Kyshtym accident in 1957, and from Haweswater Reservoir (UK), following atmospheric nuclear weapons testing. The AQUASCOPE models (implemented in EXCEL spreadsheets) and model documentation are available free of charge from the corresponding author.
Radon is considered to be the main contributor to the worldwide population exposure to natural sources of radiation and so a lot of efforts have been made in most countries to assess indoor radon concentrations. Radon exhales from the earth's surface and is part of the radioactive decay series of uranium, which is also present in building materials. In this work, measurements of radon exhalation rates in building materials commonly used in the Iberian Peninsula have been carried out by using two different methods: active and passive techniques. In the first technique, the radon exhalation rate was measured following the radon activity growth as a function of time, by using a continuous radon monitor. The second technique is based on integrated measurements by using solid-state nuclear track detectors and a Spark Counter reading equipment. The results obtained by both measuring methods were found to be consistent.
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