General concepts for traceability in environmental radioactivity monitoring

Abstract

Measurement traceability is an important component for the realization of the becquerel. For radioanalytical measurements, the definition of measurement traceability must include sub-sample processing operations prior to instrument measurement. The most effective demonstration that measurement traceability and the SI becquerel have been realized isparticipation in suitable proficiency testing using appropriate traceable reference materials,an embedded system of analytical quality control andaudit regimes covering all aspects of laboratory operation.Guidance documents are available for a number of measurement fields such as environmental and bioassay measurement that recognize the important utility of measurement tractability as part of the supporting metrology infrastructure. Non-radiometric methods, mainly mass spectrometry based, as well as field (or in situ) measurements are also available for the assay of radioactive species. These are not explicitly treated in this paper but should be consistent with the approaches described here.