Europe-wide atmospheric radionuclide dispersion by unprecedented wildfires in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, April 2020

Olivier Masson (1) , Oleksandr Romanenko (2) , Olivier Saunier (3) , Serhii Kirieiev (4) , Valentyn Protsak (5) , Gennady Laptev (5) , Oleg Voitsekhovych (5) , Vanessa Durand (3) , Frederic Coppin (6) , Georg Steinhauser (7) , Anne de Vismes (8) , Philippe Renaud (9) , Damien Didier (10) , Beatrice Boulet (8) , Maxime Morin (11) , Miroslav Hyza (12) , Johan Camps (13) , Olga Belyaeava (14) , Alexandre Dalheimer (15) , Konstantinos Eleftheriadis (16) , Catalina Gascó-Leonarte (17) , Alexandra Ioannidou (18) , Krzyzstof Isajenko (19) , Tero Karhunen (20) , Johan Kastlander (21) , Christian Katzlberger (22) , Renata Kierepko (23) , Gert-Jan Knetsch (24) , Julia Kövendiné Kónyi (25) , Jerzy Wojtek Mietelski (26) , Michael Mirsch (15) , Bredo Møller (27) , Jelena Krneta Nikolić (28) , Pavel Povinec (29) , Rosella Maria Rusconi (30) , Vladimir Samsonov (31) , Ivan Sýkora (32) , Elena Simion (33) , Philipp Steinmann (34) , Stylianos Stoulos (35) , Juan Antonio Suarez-Navarro (36) , Herbert Wershofen (37) , Daniel Zapata García (38) , Benjamin Zorko (39)

1 IRSN/PSE-ENV/SEREN/LEREN - Laboratoire d'étude et d'expertise sur la radioactivité de l'environnement
2 Rivne NPP - Rivne NPP
3 IRSN/PSE-SANTE/SESUC/BMCA - Bureau de Modélisation des transferts dans l'environnement pour l'études des Conséquences des accidents
4 SSE ECOCENTRE - State Specialized Enterprise ECOCENTRE
5 UHMI - Ukrainian Hydrometeorological Institute
6 IRSN/PSE-ENV/SRTE/LR2T - Laboratoire de recherche sur les transferts des radionucléides dans les écosystèmes terrestres
7 Leibniz Universität Hannover, Institute of Radioecology andRadiation Protection
8 IRSN/PSE-ENV/SAME/LMRE - Laboratoire de métrologie de la radioactivité dans l'environnement
9 IRSN/PSE-ENV - Pôle Santé Environnement- Direction Environnement
10 IRSN/PSE-SANTE/SESUC - Service des situations d'urgence et d'organisation de crise
11 IRSN/PSE-ENV/SIRSE/LSE - Laboratoire de surveillance de l'environnement par échantillonnage
12 SÚRO - National Radiation Protection Institute
13 SCK-CEN - Centre d’Etude de l’Energie Nucléaire
14 NAS RA - Center for Ecological-Noosphere Studies
15 DWD - Deutscher Wetterdienst [Offenbach]
16 NCSR Demokritos - Institute of Nuclear and Radiological Sciences & Technology, Energy & Safety, National Centre for Scientific Research
17 Unidad de Radioactividad Ambiental y Vigilancia Radiológica
18 Nuclear Physics and Elementary Particle Physics Division
19 CLRP - Central Laboratory for Radiological Protection
20 STUK - Säteilyturvakeskus [Suomi] = Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority in Finland = Autorité de sûreté nucléaire et de radioprotection [Finlande]
21 FOI - Swedish Defence Research Agency
22 Department of Radiation Protection and Technical Quality Assurance
23 IFJ - The Henryk Nievodniczanski Institute of Nuclear Physics, Polish Academy of Sciences,
24 RIVM - National Institute for Public Health and the Environment [Bilthoven]
25 Division of Environmental and Public Radiohygiene
26 IFJ - The Henryk Nievodniczanski Institute of Nuclear Physics
27 Norwegian Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority
28 Laboratory for Radiation Measurements. Department of Radiation and Environmental Protection
29 Department of Nuclear Physics and Biophysics
30 ARPA Lombardia - Centro Regionale Radioprotezione, Agenzia Regionale per la Protezione dell’Ambiente della Lombardia
31 Republican Center of Hydrometeorology, Radioactive Contamination Control and Environmental Monitoring
32 DEPARTMENT OF NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND BIOPHYSICS
33 National Reference Laboratory
34 Environmental Radioactivity Section
35 Nuclear Physics and Elementary Particle Physics Division, Physics Department
36 UNIDAD DE RADIOACTIVIDAD AMBIENTAL Y VIGILANCIA RADIOLÓGICA
37 PTB - Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt
38 PTB - Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt
39 IJS - Jozef Stefan Institute [Ljubljana]

From early April 2020, wildfires raged in the highly contaminated areas around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant (CNPP), Ukraine. For about 4 weeks, the fires spread around and into the Chernobyl exclusion zone (CEZ) and came within a few kilometres of both the CNPP and radioactive waste storage facilities. In early May, the firefighters and a period of sustained precipitation stopped the blaze. In total, 0.7-1.2 TBq 137Cs would have been released into the atmopshere. Smoke plumes partly spread south and west and contributed to the detection of airborne 137Cs as far away as Western Europe. The increase in airborne 137Cs ranged from several hundred µBq m-3 in northern Ukraine to trace levels of a few µBq m-3 or even within the usual background level in other European countries. Dispersion modeling determined the plume arrival time and was helpful in the assessment of the possible increase in airborne 137Cs concentrations in Europe. Detections of airborne 90Sr (emission estimate 345 – 612 GBq) and Pu (up to 75 GBq, mostly 241Pu) were reported from the CEZ. Americium-241 represented only 1.4% of the total source term corresponding to the studied anthropogenic radionuclides but would have contributed up to 80% of the inhalation dose.

Domaines: Sciences de l'environnement

Olivier Masson, Oleksandr Romanenko, Olivier Saunier, Serhii Kirieiev, Valentyn Protsak, et al.. Europe-wide atmospheric radionuclide dispersion by unprecedented wildfires in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, April 2020. Environmental Science and Technology, 2021, 55 (20), pp.13834-13848. ⟨10.1021/acs.est.1c03314⟩. ⟨hal-03462522⟩