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An assessment on levels of radionuclides and trace metals and radiological risk to marine biota in the North-Eastern Mediterranean Sea

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Abstract

Artificially produced radionuclides by nuclear reactions are the second type available in the marine environment, in addition to the radionuclides originating from natural sources. Natural radionuclides have been introduced into the environment by several paths of which were unpredictable compared to the anthropogenic activities performed in a controlled manner such as nuclear weapon testing and nuclear fuel reprocessing activities. One major path for radionuclide accumulation to the marine environment from unpredictable sources known to be the river runoffs which transfers the radionuclides deposited over land. In the present study natural—artificial radionuclide activity (226Ra, 232Th, 40K and 137Cs) and trace metal concentrations (Cd, Co, Cr, Ni, Pb, Mn, Fe, Cu, Zn, K, Ca, Mg and Na) in the coastal areas of north-eastern Mediterranean Sea, and the radiological risk to marine biota (fish and invertebrate species) were investigated. Individuals of seven species belonging to two biota groups were analyzed to evaluate the radionuclide activity levels. Highest activity levels of 226Ra, 232Th and 40K were detected for Mullus barbatus (8.6 ± 0.8 Bq kg−1), Charybdis longicollis (5.3 ± 0.4 Bq kg−1) and Pagellus acarne (95.7 ± 6 Bq kg−1) respectively. Highest total dose rate for all evaluated radionuclides was 12.6 nGy h−1. 226Ra and 40K were the two radionuclides with highest contribution to the total dose rate. Our results indicated that there is no radiological risk in the study area. Charybdis longicollis samples were detected to be rich in Mn, Zn and Ca.

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Data Availability Statement

This manuscript has associated data in a data repository. [Authors’ comment: The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.]

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Scientific Research Project Coordination Division of the Akdeniz University, Grant number BAP, FBA-2019-4449.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Fisheries, University of Akdeniz, 07058, Antalya, Turkey

    Idris Koraltan & Olgac Guven

  2. Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, Ankara, Turkey

    Filiz Okturen Asri & Ozgur Aktas

  3. Bati Akdeniz Agricultural Research Institute, Antalya, Turkey

    Filiz Okturen Asri

  4. Mediterranean Fisheries Research, Production and Training Institute, Antalya, Turkey

    Ozgur Aktas

  5. Vocational School of Technical Sciences, Antalya, Turkey

    Ercument Aksoy & Suleyman Fatih Ozmen

  6. Faculty of Science, University of Akdeniz, 07058, Antalya, Turkey

    Ismail Boztosun

  7. Institute of Nuclear Sciences, Ege University, Izmir, Turkey

    Gunseli Yaprak

  8. Turkish Accelerator and Research Laboratory, 06830, Ankara, Turkey

    Suleyman Fatih Ozmen

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Contributions

IK: Validation, Formal analysis, Resources, Writing—Original Draft, Visualization. OG: Conceptualization, Methodology, Validation, Investigation, Resources, Data Curation, Writing—Original Draft, Visualization, Project administration, Funding acquisition. FO: ASRI: Resources, Writing—Review & Editing Ozgur AKTAS: Resources, Writing—Review & Editing Ercüment AKSOY: Visualization, Writing—Review & Editing Gunseli YAPRAK: Conceptualization, Methodology, Supervision Ismail BOZTOSUN: Conceptualization, Methodology, Supervision Suleyman Fatih OZMEN: Conceptualization, Methodology, Validation, Formal analysis, Data Curation Resources Investigation, Writing—Original Draft, Visualization, Supervision.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Suleyman Fatih Ozmen.

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The authors have no competing interests to declare that are relevant to the content of this article. The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Koraltan, I., Guven, O., Asri, F.O. et al. An assessment on levels of radionuclides and trace metals and radiological risk to marine biota in the North-Eastern Mediterranean Sea. Eur. Phys. J. Spec. Top. 232, 1583–1593 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1140/epjs/s11734-023-00884-8

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