State of the art of standard methods used for environmental radioactivity monitoring

Methods for assessment of radioactivity in the environment are selected by the prevailing circumstances and the objective of the investigations. Examples of the broad range of scenarios to be considered are routine monitoring of large areas for low-activity concentrations and emergency monitoring dealing possibly with high dose rates. For each of these situations the type of monitoring programme to be established is influenced by the source of radioactivity as well as the environment, with different characteristics in terms of time schedule and subject of measurement. Over the past years, the methods of radiation surveys to assess environmental effects have been optimised for low-level detection and quantification of releases. This paper gives a brief overview of various standard monitoring techniques used for assessments of environmental radioactivity, for those sample types, which are most representative.