The Semipalatinsk Test Site (STS) in Kazakhstan was one of the major sites used by the former USSR for testing nuclear weapons for more than 40 years. Since the early 1990s, agricultural activities have been re-established there by neighbouring collective and private farms. Therefore, it has become important to evaluate the radiological situation and the current and future risk to people living on and using the contaminated area. During the last eight years, GSF has participated in many international projects performed on the STS to evaluate the radiological situation. A large number of soil, vegetation and food samples has been collected and analysed. Internal dose is one of the main components of the total dose when deriving risk factors for a population living within the test site. Internal doses, based on food monitoring and whole body measurements, were calculated for adults and were in the range of 13-500 microSv/y due to radiocaesium and radiostrontium.
Nuclear power and modern agriculture are two crucial sectors for sustainable development in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). As these industries mature rapidly in the country, their long-term inter-compatibility needs monitoring with local data on transfer of radionuclides from arid sandy soils to farm products. Date palms, main crop from the Arabian Peninsula, remain largely unstudied for radioecological impact assessments. This paper reports the first measurement of soil to UAE date palms concentration ratios for natural radionuclides. Representative samples of soils, fruits, and leaves from seven palms in Abu Dhabi have been studied using gamma-spectrometry. Average activity concentrations in the soils are around 278.9 Bq kg−1 for 40K, 15.5 Bq kg−1 for 238U, and 8.3 Bq kg−1 for 232Th. The latter two decay chains, in the plant samples, are close to detection limits, signifying their lower levels in the UAE flora and the need for upgrading analytical techniques. The geometric means of soil to fruit concentration ratios are 1.12 for 40K, but negligibly low for the others—approximately 0.08 for 238U and 0.17 for 232Th chains. The respective ratios for the leaves are approximately 0.13, 0.36, and 0.77. Personal radiation doses due to soils and dates are very low, posing no danger to the public.
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