External Dose Rate Monitoring in Finland: History, Experiences and a Glimpse at the Future

Abstract

Finland has a long history in monitoring external radiation. Regular monitoring began in the early 1960s when the first networks measuring exposure rates were established. Today the nation-wide network is fully automatic and consists of about 260 stations with Geiger-Műller (GM) tubes. Some 25 stations also have a LaBr3 spectrometer. In this article the authors describe the history, experiences and major development stages of the Finnish dose rate monitoring arrangements and also have a brief look at the possible future.

Novel environmental monitoring detector for discriminating fallout and airborne radioactivity

“…Networks were established 1 in many European countries after the Chernobyl accident 2 , but e.g. in Finland the history of the external radiation monitoring network goes back to the 1960s 3 . Traditionally, dose rate detectors are used, but current state-of-the-art early warning networks are equipped with spectrometric stations to identify radionuclides.…”