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External dose reconstruction at the shore of the Metlinsky Pond in the former village of Metlino (Techa River, Russia) based on environmental surveys, luminescence measurements and radiation transport modelling

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Abstract

The cohorts of people formerly living at the Techa River shoreline in the Southern Urals, Russia, are widely studied cohorts for the investigation of low-dose radiation effects to human health. The nuclear facilities of the Mayak Production Association (PA) discharged their radioactive effluents into the nearby Techa River, especially in the first years of operation. Health status of cohort member data is constantly being improved and updated. Consequently, there is a need to also improve and verify the underlying dosimetry, which gives information about the dose of cohort members. For the Techa River population, the dosimetry is handled in the Techa River Dosimetry System (TRDS). The present work shows results of a feasibility study to validate the TRDS at the location of the village of Metlino, a village just 7 km downstream from the Mayak PA. For this settlement there were two sources of external exposure, the contaminated banks of the Techa River and the contaminated shoreline of the nearby Metlinsky Pond. In the present study the north-western wall of a granary was used as a dose archive to validate dose estimates. Measurements of doses in brick accumulated over many decades and measurements of the current dose rate in bricks were combined with dose rate measurements in air above ground in front of the granary, historical contamination data and Monte-Carlo simulations. Air kerma estimates for 1949–1956 significantly different from zero could not be reconstructed for the Metlinsky Pond shoreline near the granary, but an upper dose limit could be estimated. Implications for TRDS-2016 are discussed.

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taken from Hiller et al. (2017)

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source number (black). Locations of detectors are marked with white dots, locations of Thermoluminescence dosimeters (TLDs) in the field are indicated as black dots. Right: Vertical section of the “Current Model”, showing the granary wall and the dam in front of the granary

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source of radioactivity in soil is shown in light red, the source of radioactivity at the bed of the Metlinsky Pond is shown in dark red. Detectors in the model above the sources are shown in light and dark green, respectively

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source depth profile (A) and with a modified source depth profile (B) (see section “Dose depth distribution in bricks”). Sample numbers G1/2, G7 and G14 are shown in Table 3

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Availability of data and materials

All data used in this work are shown directly or given in the references.

Code availability

MCNP can be obtained from RSICC at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN, USA; Matlab can be obtained from The MathWorks, Inc, Natick, Massachusetts, USA.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Bruce Napier and Michael Smith from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory for their discussion of this work, as well as for performing some Monte Carlo calculations on their computing cluster. We also thank Dr. Pavel Stukalov from Mayak Production Association (Ozersk, Russia) for his valuable contribution to the search for archive environmental data, which he performed in 2009–2010. Financial support was provided by the Russian Health Studies Program of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) under the auspices of the Joint Coordinating Committee for Radiation Effects Research Project 1.1, Techa River Population Dosimetry. The in-situ gamma-spectrometric measurements presented in the present work were carried out with support of the European Community’s Sixth Framework Program (FP6-516478).

Funding

Financial support was provided by the Russian Health Studies Program of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) under the auspices of the Joint Coordinating Committee for Radiation Effects Research Project 1.1, Techa River Population Dosimetry. The in-situ gamma-spectrometric measurements presented in this work were carried out with support of the European Community’s Sixth Framework Program (FP6-516478).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Independent Researcher, Augsburg, Germany

    Mauritius Hiller

  2. Helmholtz Zentrum München, German Research Center for Environmental Health, Institute of Medicine, 85764, Neuherberg, Germany

    Clemens Woda

  3. Urals Research Center for Radiation Medicine, Chelaybinsk, Russia

    Marina Degteva, Nikolay Bugrov, Elena Shishkina & Evgeny Pryakhin

  4. Chelyabinsk State University, Chelyabinsk, 454001, Russia

    Elena Shishkina

  5. National Research Center, Kurchatov Institute, Moscow, 123182, Russia

    Oleg Ivanov

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  1. Mauritius Hiller
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Correspondence to Mauritius Hiller.

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Hiller, M., Woda, C., Degteva, M. et al. External dose reconstruction at the shore of the Metlinsky Pond in the former village of Metlino (Techa River, Russia) based on environmental surveys, luminescence measurements and radiation transport modelling. Radiat Environ Biophys 61, 87–109 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00411-021-00953-3

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