META-ANALYSIS OF THE RADIOACTIVE POLLUTION OF THE OCEAN

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Center for Russian Environmental Policy

2005

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Humans have been altering the marine environment for millennia. Usually five critical

environmental issues in the ocean took notice: over-fishing, chemical pollution and eutrophication,

habitats destruction, invasion of exotic species and global climate change. However, one of the

major threats the oceans may face in the twentieth-first century are the radioactive pollution during

the last half of the twentieth century.

Among main anthropogenic sources of the Ocean’ radioactive pollution are:

• Damping of solid (SRW) and liquid radio-wastes (LRW);

• Pollution from underwater N-explosions;

• Radioactive pollution from land (including river run-off and land-based activities);

• Radioactive fallout from atmosphere;

• Radioactive pollution originating from accidents (lost N-warheads and radio-emission from thermo-

electric generators, sunken vessels and ships, falling satellites with radioactive materials, etc.);

• Discharge from vessels with N-reactors.

In spite of intensive studying (IAEA TECDOC series # # 481, 1105, 1330, European Commission’s

MARINA Study, Global Marine Radioactivity Database of Marine Environmental Laboratory in

Monaco, IASAP, etc.), till to now we are far from the real comprehensive inventory of all the

anthropogenic radioactive sources of the Ocean. It happened mostly because much of these data

are connected with military activities and remain classified. It looks like only Russian Federation

after the collapse of the USSR have published more or less complete inventory of radioactive

pollution of adjacent seas (White Book, 1993). In these circumstances for general ecological

understanding of a situation with radionuclides pollution of the Ocean some meta-analysis is

needed, which will include official as well as anecdotic and mass-media data.