Anthropogenic marine radioactivity

The present sources of anthropogenic radionuclides in the marine environment, consisting of global fallout, nuclear weapons testing, releases from nuclear facilities, radioactive waste dumping, the Chernobyl accident and nuclear submarine and aircraft accidents, are reviewed. 90Sr, 137Cs and Pu isotopes have been chosen as representative of anthropogenic radionuclides to study their distribution and behaviour in the marine environment. The data on their concentrations and inventories in seawater and sediment are presented and discussed. For dose assessment, 137Cs and 210Po were chosen as they are the most representative of anthropogenic (137Cs) and natural (210Po) marine radioactivity on a global scale. The average annual individual doses from ingestion of marine food estimated for the world population for the year 2000 are of the order of 0.03 μSv from 137Cs and 9 μSv from 137Cs. The annual dose of 210Po for a hypothetical critical group living on the NE Atlantic coast and consuming 100 kg of fish and 10 kg of shellfish per year would be 3 μSv, while the contribution from 210Po would be 160 μSv. These values are well below the accepted value for the public of 1 mSv.