RADIOLOGICAL ASSESSMENT OF THE IMPACT OF THE CHERNOBYL, NUCLEAR ACCIDENT IN GREECE

The Chernobyl accident resulted in severe radioactive pollution of the environment in a number of European Countries, including Greece. A la rge number of fission and activation products from the damaged reactor were transferred to the ground and propagated through various environ mental pathways and food chains. The population was exposed to additio nal external and internal irradiation, with estimated dose maxima well comparable with the total annual dose due to the natural radioactivit y. The various pathways of this exposure (external from the ground, in halation, ingestion) are considered in this paper, while contamination data and dose estimations are provided in each case. A number of dela yed effects of the environmental pollution (e.g. on the marine environ ment) are discussed as well. The risk estimations are compared with ot her risks of radiological and non-radiological origin. The paper is ba sed on many thousands of measurements of environmental and food sample s performed in ERL during the last 9 years.