Radiological monitoring, concept: "Radiation weather" and "Radiation identification of the environment"

Abstract

Background: The new concepts and parameters of the "radiation weather" and "radiation identification of the environment" for the investigated territories of the national natural parks "Uzhansky", "Enchanted land", wetlands (Black Sea), "Black Bugo", Ichthyological the ticker "Rika", and 3 rivers of Transcarpathia: Uzh, Latoritsa, Borzhava are presented. The database both the natural and technogenic gamma-active nuclides (GAN) content in the soils and sediments from selected protected areas of Transcarpathia had been obtained by using the low-background gamma spectrometry. It can estimate the сlark U/Th/K ratio in samples of bottom sediments and Transcarpathian soils as the important parameters of local "radiation weather." The possibility of estimating the spatial radon /thoron radionuclide spread based on the radiation mapping of mountain territories of the Carpathians are discussed.

Methods: The studies were carried out by using high-resolution low-background gamma-spectrometry based on a cooling Ge detector and some requirements as background conditions, the mass of the studied samples and exposure time for identification of the investigated GAN. The processing of the results was carried out using correlation and statistical factor analysis for investigation the degree of proximity of sample points of different rivers and ground horizons and for the radiation mapping of the studied territories of the Carpathians.

Results: The results of the studies allowed obtaining a database of standards for the content of natural and technogenic GAN for some protected areas of Transcarpathia, which is essential as parameters of radiation weather and for radiation mapping. The natural enrichment of theclark components of uranium against the element of thorium, along with the riverbed and the same behavior on the depth of the soils of the protected areas was also established. It is shown that the ratio of these isotopes can be used both for setting parameters of radiation weather and for radiation identification of the environment. Such results allowed one to conclude the source of man-made GANs is the high-altitude areas of the Carpathians. For the first time an estimation of geochemical components of isolated areas of protected territories of Transcarpathia on the data of radioisotopic researches.

Conclusions: The obtained data on the radiological identification of the environment can form the basis of radiation mapping of the environment. These results are significant for establishing the radiation weather quality parameters for the living biota and in particular, humanity. It has been shown that these results are sufficient to evaluate the content of radon/thoron/potassium and their ratio, which is vital for determining the geochemical state of the territory.