INFORMATICS SUPPORT FOR ANALYZING THE RADIOLOGICAL IMPACT OF AREAS AFFECTED BY THE CHERNOBYL ACCIDENT

The organisation and management of data banks generated using data fro m monitoring the radiological situation after the Chernobyl accident i s of key importance to health care and rehabilitation in the contamina ted areas. Measures following the accident were based on large scale s tudies involving analysis and prediction of radioactive contamination. These studies included measurements of radioactivity in air, soil and water, modelling and prediction of radionuclides transport and transf ormation. This required the development of a computer system RECASS (R adioEcological Analysis Support System) which is currently bring devel oped in SPA 'Typhoon'. The main tasks of RECASS are to integrate data on existing characteristics of the environment, and data on air, soil, water and biota-contamination with numerical models that account for radionuclide behaviour in all environmental media, and with radiation dose formations that are based on geographic information system (GIS) principles. The data bank of the system includes the following data ba ses: a data base with measurement of radioactive contamination levels in environmental media (soil, air, water); a meteorological data base; and a data base with administrative and demographic data. A set of mo dels for radionuclide transfer in various environments incorporated in the chain permits short or long-term predictions to be made. The resu lts of implementing RECASS to reconstruct the time and space picture o f contamination in the first days after the Chernobyl accident are pre sented.