The environmental half-lives and mean residence times of contaminants in dust for an urban environment: Barrow-in-Furness.

ABSTRACT

Radiocaesium contamination of dusts from external (road and school yards) and internal (house) environments within Barrow-in-Furness was found to be derived from the primary input event of Chernobyl fallout. The specific activity of radiocaesium in the dust reservoirs studied, decreased exponentially, enabling environmental half-lives to be calculated (190-370 day). The broad similarity of these half-lives indicated that secondary contamination processes, such as atmospheric deposition of resuspended dust, cause all the internal and external reservoirs to be linked into a system encompassing much of Barrow-in-Furness. Mean residence times of external dust were derived from the calculated environmental half-lives and measurements of atmospheric deposition (150-250 day). These mean residence times are dependent on local processes and are thus site specific, whilst the environmental half-lives represent an integration of all the processes operating in Barrow-in-Furness.