INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS ON FOOD AND ENVIRONMENTAL RADIOACTIVITY MEASUREMENT FOR RADIOLOGICAL PROTECTION: STATUS AND PERSPECTIVES.

Radiological protection is a matter of concern for members of the public and thus national authorities are more likely to trust the quality of radioactivity data provided by accredited laboratories using common standards. Normative approach based on international standards aims to ensure the accuracy or validity of the test result through calibrations and measurements traceable to the International System of Units. This approach guarantees that radioactivity test results on the same types of samples are comparable over time and space as well as between different testing laboratories. Today, testing laboratories involved in radioactivity measurement have a set of more than 150 international standards to help them perform their work. Most of them are published by the International Standardization Organization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC). This paper reviews the most essential ISO standards that give guidance to testing laboratories at different stages from sampling planning to the transmission of the test report to their customers, summarizes recent activities and achievements and present the perspectives on new standards under development by the ISO Working Groups dealing with radioactivity measurement in connection with radiological protection.

Long-term behavior of (90)Sr and (137)Cs in the environment: Case studies in Switzerland.

We present long-term records of the (137)Cs and (90)Sr activity concentrations in soil, grass and milk from two lowland and two alpine pastures of Switzerland. The data is used for better understanding the long-term behavior of these radionuclides in the environment. Transfer factors between compartments are used as qualitative indicators of the magnitude of transfer and as a way to compare different elements (e.g. Cs and Sr) in similar conditions. The long-term behavior was quantified by means of the effective half-life which integrates all processes that cause a decrease of activity in a given medium such as leaching, fixation, erosion and radioactive decay. Our study shows that (90)Sr is more likely transferred from alpine soil to grass than (137)Cs. This is explained by a stronger fixation of Cs in the soils. We observed higher transfers of (90)Sr to grass in soils with lower Ca concentrations, and vice versa. In contrast, the transfer of (137)Cs to grass was not affected by the variations of the K content in the soil. We provide evidence that shows that (137)Cs, after intake by dairy cattle, is more likely transferred to milk than (90)Sr. However, as the (90)Sr and Ca transfers to milk are influenced by parameters/processes that were not taken into account in our study, our result cannot be entirely validated. The effective half-lives of (137)Cs and (90)Sr in soil, grass and milk corresponded with previous estimates in alpine soils. We have found that processes other than radioactive decay are responsible for a major decrease of the (90)Sr activity in soil. For (137)Cs, on the other hand, radioactive decay is among the most relevant process. Our data shows to be of interest in studying the trends of behavior of radionuclides in alpine regions.