8. Atmospheric, Water, and Soil Contamination after Chernobyl

Abstract

Air particulate activity over all of the Northern Hemisphere reached its highest levels since the termination of nuclear weapons testing--sometimes up to 1 million times higher than before the Chernobyl contamination. There were essential changes in the ionic, aerosol, and gas structure of the surface air in the heavily contaminated territories, as measured by electroconductivity and air radiolysis. Many years after the catastrophe aerosols from forest fires have dispersed hundreds of kilometers away. The Chernobyl radionuclides concentrate in sediments, water, plants, and animals, sometimes 100,000 times more than the local background level. The consequences of such a shock on aquatic ecosystems is largely unclear. Secondary contamination of freshwater ecosystems occurs as a result of Cs-137 and Sr-90 washout by the high waters of spring. The speed of vertical migration of different radionuclides in floodplains, lowland moors, peat bogs, etc., is about 2-4 cm/year. As a result of this vertical migration of radionuclides in soil, plants with deep root systems absorb them and carry the ones that are buried to the surface again. This transfer is one of the important mechanisms, observed in recent years, that leads to increased doses of internal irradiation among people in the contaminated territories.