title: Reconstructing the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant (CNPP) accident 30 years after. A unique database of air concentration and deposition measurements over Europe.
abstract: 30 years after the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant (CNPP) accident, its radioactive releases still remain of great interest mainly due to the long half-lives of many radionuclides emitted. Observations from the terrestrial environment, which hosts radionuclides for many years after initial deposition, are important for health and environmental assessments. Furthermore, such measurements are the basis for validation of atmospheric transport models and can be used for constraining the still not accurately known source terms. However, although the "Atlas of cesium deposition on Europe after the Chernobyl accident" (hereafter referred to as "Atlas") has been published since 1998, less than 1% of the direct observations of (137)Cs deposition has been made publicly available. The remaining ones are neither accessible nor traceable to specific data providers and a large fraction of these data might have been lost entirely. The present paper is an effort to rescue some of the data collected over the years following the CNPP accident and make them publicly available. The database includes surface air activity concentrations and deposition observations for (131)I, (134)Cs and (137)Cs measured and provided by Former Soviet Union authorities the years that followed the accident. Using the same interpolation tool as the official authorities, we have reconstructed a deposition map of (137)Cs based on about 3% of the data used to create the Atlas map. The reconstructed deposition map is very similar to the official one, but it has the advantage that it is based exclusively on documented data sources, which are all made available within this publication. In contrast to the official map, our deposition map is therefore reproducible and all underlying data can be used also for other purposes. The efficacy of the database was proved using simulated activity concentrations and deposition of (137)Cs from a Langrangian and a Euleurian transport model.
authors.affiliation: Norwegian Institute for Air Research (NILU), Department of Atmospheric and Climate Research (ATMOS), Kjeller, Norway. Electronic address: Nikolaos.Evangeliou@nilu.no.
authors.forename: Nikolaos
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Evangeliou
authors.affiliation: Norwegian Institute for Air Research (NILU), Department of Atmospheric and Climate Research (ATMOS), Kjeller, Norway.
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Hamburger
authors.affiliation: Scientific Centre for Radiation Medicine, 53 Melnikov Street, Kyiv, 04050, Ukraine.
authors.forename: Nikolai
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Talerko
authors.affiliation: National University of Life and Environmental Sciences of Ukraine, Kiev, Ukraine.
authors.forename: Sergey
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Zibtsev
authors.affiliation: Polessie State Radiation-Ecological Reserve, Tereshkovoy Street 7, Khoiniki, Gomel Region, Belarus.
authors.forename: Yuri
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Bondar
authors.affiliation: Norwegian Institute for Air Research (NILU), Department of Atmospheric and Climate Research (ATMOS), Kjeller, Norway.
authors.forename: Andreas
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Stohl
authors.affiliation: CEA-UVSQ-CNRS UMR 8212, Institut Pierre et Simon Laplace, Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement (LSCE), L'Orme des Merisiers, F-91191, Gif-sur-Yvette Cedex, France.
authors.forename: Yves
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Balkanski
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Sciences, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, 29208, USA.
authors.forename: Timothy A
authors.initials: TA
authors.lastname: Mousseau
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire d'Ecologie, Systématique et Evolution, CNRS UMR 8079, Université Paris-Sud, Bâtiment 362, F-91405, Orsay Cedex, France.
authors.forename: Anders P
authors.initials: AP
authors.lastname: Møller
mesh_terms: D000396:Air Pollutants, Radioactive / Q000032:analysis; D002588:Cesium Radioisotopes / Q000032:analysis; D047852:Chernobyl Nuclear Accident; D016208:Databases, Factual; D005060:Europe; D006207:Half-Life; D055848:Nuclear Power Plants; D012990:Soil Pollutants, Radioactive / Q000032:analysis
chemical_list: D000396:Air Pollutants, Radioactive; D002588:Cesium Radioisotopes; D012990:Soil Pollutants, Radioactive
keywords: Chernobyl data; Iodine-131; Public datasets; Radiocesium; Strontium-90; Transuranium elements