Answer to Question #606 Submitted to "Ask the Experts"

Q

Do you have data or bibliography concerning radioactivity contamination of mountain pastures by ¹³⁷Cs rising by nuclear accidents (Chernobyl or others)?

A

Mountain pastures (and nonmountain pastures) were contaminated with ¹³⁷Cs by global fallout from the tests of nuclear weapons in the 1950s and 1960s and by the Chernobyl accident in 1986. These were the more significant sources.

In general the amount of contamination per unit area of ground surface was strongly dependent upon the amount of rainfall. A general reference on this subject is the recently published report by the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation. (Sources and effects of ionizing radiation. New York: United Nations; Sales No. E.00.IX.3; 2000). This report summarizes the data on global fallout and has a special chapter on Chernobyl exposures and effects. The report also contains extensive bibliographic citations on these subjects.

If you want more detailed information on the contamination of pastures at particular locations, a good source would be "The atlas of caesium-137 contamination of Europe after the Chernobyl accident." I don't have a copy of this large document, which contains about 100 color maps, but it was prepared under the Joint Study Project (JSP6) of the CEC/CIS Collaborative Programme on the Consequences of the Chernobyl Accident, implemented into the European Commission's Radiation Protection Research Action. As you can tell from the title, this document pertains only to Europe; contamination in the United States and Asia was much, much smaller. If you have an interest in this publication, I will try to get the name of a contact at the European Commission for you. Unfortunately, there has recently been a nearly complete turnover of personnel in that program.

Lynn Anspaugh, PhD