The consequences of the Chernobyl accident: First results in the radioecology project of the French-German initiative

The French-German Initiative for Chernobyl, implemented by IPSN and GRS, includes a Project on the Radioecological Consequences of the Accident. Different fields of radioecology and post-accidental aspects had been chosen, such as radionuclides transfers to plants, to animals, by surface run-off, in the aquatic environment and in the urban environment, wastes management and countermeasures. Data from Belarus, Russia and Ukraine, have been collected, verified and organized. This constitutes a tool for development and validation of operational, assessment and explicative models. In the different part of ecosystems, the radionuclides transfers have been quantified and the main parameters influencing identified. For wastes, unified categorizations for the three countries have been adopted for wastes and for disposals. The operational database built allows the management of the wastes disposal sites. Countermeasures used after the accident for urban areas, natural and agricultural environment, have been described and classified. A methodology for evaluating their effectiveness has been developed. For linking the different data, maps of initial and present contamination by 137Cs and 90Sr have been drawn up and relevant environmental non radioactive data have been collected with all the others, structured in an unique database REDAC and georeferenced using a Geographical Information System