Abstract
In 2016—2019, comparison tests of different methods for quantitative determination of the content of the technogenic radionuclide 137 Cs in soil samples were performed. Soil samples were collected from areas with high and low 137 Cs contamination in Belarus. The intercomparison was performed as a part of an ongoing Russian—Swedish—Belarusian cooperation on the assessment of radioactive contamination of the environment. Three laboratories of the regular participants in the project and three laboratories from other facilities participated in the intercomparison that was focused on the samples of cultivated soil from the Gomel region (the first stage of comparisons, 3 samples) and the Grodno region (the second stage of comparisons, 4 samples). Results on activity concentrations in the samples presented by the participants were in satisfactory agreement with each other. The maximum deviation from the average value, that had been calculated for each sample based on the individual results from all laboratories, was 14%. Stage-averaged deviations from the inter-laboratory mean did not exceed 10%. Results of the comparison tests should be taken into consideration when comparing or merging experimental data from different laboratories participating in the Russian—Swedish—Belarusian cooperation project.
Highlights
For almost one decade, an international group of researchers from the Institute of Radiobiology of the Academy of Sciences of Belarus (IRB), Lund University, Sweden (LU), and St
In 2016–2018, the group carried out assessments of the radiation environment in the Chernobyl contaminated Vetka district in the Gomel region of Belarus [1]
Apart from IRB, LU and IRH, two additional laboratories were participating in the laboratory comparison tests carried out in parallel: one in Belarus [Research Institute of Radiology, Gomel (RIR)] and one in Sweden [Swedish Radiation Safety Authority, Stockholm (SSM)]
Summary
An international group of researchers from the Institute of Radiobiology of the Academy of Sciences of Belarus (IRB), Lund University, Sweden (LU), and St. Petersburg Research Institute of Radiation Hygiene after Professor P.V. Ramzaev, Russia (IRH) have been cooperating in various projects related to environmental radiology. In 2016–2018, the group carried out assessments of the radiation environment in the Chernobyl contaminated Vetka district in the Gomel region of Belarus [1]. An important part of that project was to evaluate the inventory and depth distribution of 137Cs in soil, and to determine the corresponding gamma dose rate in air at various locations. Apart from IRB, LU and IRH, two additional laboratories were participating in the laboratory comparison tests carried out in parallel: one in Belarus [Research Institute of Radiology, Gomel (RIR)] and one in Sweden [Swedish Radiation Safety Authority, Stockholm (SSM)]
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