DISTRIBUTION OF SOME NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL RADIONUCLIDES IN THE ENVIRONMENT OF COASTAL KARNATAKA OF SOUTH-INDIA

Coastal Karnataka, which is an important region of the south-west coas t of India, is poised to become a region of major industrial activity with the construction of nuclear and thermal power stations, oil refin eries and petrochemical complexes. This is in addition to existing che mical and fertilizer. factories anti a host of other industries. Syste matic studies on radiation levels and I radionuclide distributions in the environment of this region were under taken to provide baseline da ta on the radiation levels for future assessment of the impact of thes e industrial activities and to throw light, on the basic aspects of tr ansportation of radionuclides in the environment and their uptake by v egetation species. The activities of K-40, Ra-226, Po-210 Pb-210, Ra-2 28, Cs-137 and Sr-90. were determined in a number of environmental sam ples' of the region by employing well established nuclear techniques a nd standard radiochemical methods. The internal dose to the population of the region from ingestion of different radionuclides was estimated , The results of these systematic investigations, which form the first ever report on the radionuclide distribution of coastal Karnataka, ar e presented and discussed in this paper.