Analysis of the Dose Commitments Resulting from Atmospheric Transport and Deposition from Nuclear Risk Sites in the Russian Far East

• Main Authors: Brown, K.G., Compton, K.L., Parker, F., Mahura, A., Novikov, V.
• Format: Book
• Language: English
• Published: IR-03-012 2003
• Subjects: Petropavlovsk; Alaska; Aleutian Islands
• Online Access: https://pure.iiasa.ac.at/id/eprint/7069/; https://pure.iiasa.ac.at/id/eprint/7069/1/IR-03-012.pdf

The purpose of this study was to estimate the worst-case case dose commitments and potential consequences of accidental releases at nuclear risk sites in the Russian Far East. The nuclear risk sites of concern are near Petropavlovsk (52055'N & 158030'E) and Vladivostok (42055'N & 132025'E). The region of interest includes the territories of the Russian Far East, China, Japan, North and South Korea, State of Alaska, the Aleutian Islands, Mongolia, Burma, Hong Kong, Laos, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam. The transboundary region (i.e., that outside of Russia) is of primary interest because the largest doses resulting from hypothetical releases from these sites would reside in Russia and would be examined using site specific information and detailed models that were unavailable for this study. However, the transboundary region can be examined, in general, using existing information and models. The The methodology from the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) 1993 Report was used in this study to estimate effective dose commitments. It is recognized that this methodology is not the only acceptable manner to estimate such doses; the methodology was selected because it is independent, defensible, and, because it is based upon a multiplicative model, lends itself to a facile examination of parameter variation. The research tool used to generate the deposition data used as the basis of this study was a long-range transport model - the Danish Emergency Response Model of the Atmosphere (DERMA) which was used to simulate the 5-d atmospheric transport, dispersion and deposition of Cs-137 for a one-day release at a rate of 10Bq s-1 for a total "unit hypothetical release" of 8.64x10 14 Bq. The meteorological data from the European Center for Medium- Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF, Reading, UK) based on the ECMWF global model forecast and analysis were used as input data for the model simulation. Using the DERMA model, the total Cs-137 depositions (i.e., sums of pertinent dry ...