FRENCH-GERMAN INITIATIVE FOR CHERNOBYL – THE RADIOECOLOGY PROJECT : MAIN RESULTS.

G Deville Cavelin, H Biesold, V Chabanyuk, C Brun Yaba, N Rutschkowsky

3rd congress on radiation research (radiobiology and radioecology), kiev Ukraine 21 to 25 may.

  Ten years after the Chernobyl accident, IRSN and GRS decided to start actions for evaluating the consequences of the release of large amounts of radionuclides in the environnent. The French-German Initiative for Chernobyl includes a "Radioecology Project" for the evaluation of the radioecological consequences of the accident, a "Shelter" project, and a "Health consequences" project. According to the general agreement between IRSN for France, GRS for Germany and the Chornobyl Centre for Ukraine, the radioecology project started at the end of 1998 and its purpose is to collect, validate and secure existing data by establishing data bases for further uses.

The chosen topics were the radionuclide transfer from soil to plants and to animals, the transfer by surface runoff and in an aquatic environnent, the transfer in an urban environnent, waste disposal and waste management, and countermeasures and their efficiency in urban, agricultural and natural environments. The data collected have been gathered in a common database called REDAC (RadioEcological Database After Chernobyl) and a web site has been opened in order to inform the public and mass media about the general content of REDAC.

The goals of the project have been achieved in most of the sub-projects, and the major results of these four years' work are very promising. REDAC, the soft integrated database here breiefly presented, contains much information for further scientific uses and for decision makers. Data on contamination have been established and are presented alongside with local maps presenting an ecological portrait of the studied regions and with the contamination maps published by the European Council. For the radionuclide transfer through the different pathways, results are presented, quantified and compared with model assessments. Data are classified on a confidence index. Wastes disposal sites have been located in Russia, Belarus, and some in Ukraine, and their contents have been characterised. Counter measures have been classified and their efficiency evaluated for post-accidental management purposes.