Internal Dose from Food and Drink Ingestion in the Early Phase after the Accident

Abstract

Abstract. Activity concentrations in food and drink, represented by water and vegetables, have been monitored continuously since the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident, with a focus on radioactive cesium. On the other hand, iodine-131 was not measured systematically in the early phase after the accident. The activity concentrations of iodine-131 in food and drink are important to estimate internal exposure due to ingestion pathway. When the internal dose from ingestion in the evacuation areas is estimated, water is considered as the main ingestion pathway. In this study, we estimated the values of activity concentrations in water in the early phase after the accident, using a compartment model as an estimation method. The model uses measurement values of activity concentration and deposition rate of iodine-131 onto the ground, which is calculated from an atmospheric dispersion simulation. The model considers how drinking water would be affected by radionuclides deposited into water. We estimated the activity concentrations of water on Kawamata town and Minamisouma city during March of 2011 and the committed effective doses were 0.08 mSv and 0.06 mSv. We calculated the transfer parameters in the model for estimating the activity concentrations in the areas with a small amount of measurement data. In addition, we estimated the committed effective doses from vegetables using atmospheric dispersion simulation and FARMLAND model in case of eating certain vegetables as option information.

Assessment of Heavy Metals and Radionuclides Concentration in Selected Mineral Waters Available on the Polish Market

“…Exposure to ionizing radiation from artificial radionuclides is related, among others, to medicine (radiotherapy, curieterotherapy) and industry (nuclear power plants) [26]. The presence of anthropogenic radionuclides in the environment is also related to human activity, e.g., failure of nuclear power plants (Fukushima, Chernobyl) or tests of nuclear weapons carried out in large numbers in the 1950s and 1960s [27,28]. Natural radionuclides occurring in the environment are of cosmogenic origin or were formed during the formation of the Earth.…”