These data reflect essentially the natural radiation background, if NO radiological events occur. In addition natural radioactivity caused by different sources (e.g. indoor radon, cosmic radiation, terrestrial gamma radiation, natural radionuclides in soil and bedrock) are displayed into the European Atlas of Natural Radiation (EANR).
Natural radiation
With the exception of potential large scale nuclear accidents, natural ionizing radiation is considered to be the largest contributor to the collective effective dose received by the world population.
The human population is continuously exposed to ionising radiation from several natural sources that can be classified into two broad categories: high energy cosmic rays incident on the Earth’s atmosphere and releasing secondary radiation (cosmic contribution); and radioactive nuclides generated during the formation of the Earth and still present in the Earth’s crust (terrestrial contribution). The terrestrial contribution is mainly composed of the radionuclides of the uranium and thorium decay chains together with radioactive potassium. In most circumstances, radon, a noble gas produced in the radioactive decay of uranium, is the most important contributor to radiation exposure.
Natural radionuclides, both terrestrial and cosmogenic, migrate in the environment through different pathways: air, water, rock, soil and the food chain. Radionuclides may then enter the human body through ingestion (food and drinking water) and inhalation giving, so-called, internal exposure. External exposure is due to cosmic radiation and radiation from terrestrial radionuclides present in soil, rocks and building materials.
To gain a clearer overview of the natural sources of radioactivity, the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission launched the European Atlas of Natural Radiation with the collaboration of more than 60 institutions. Intended as an encyclopaedia of natural radioactivity, the Atlas describes the different sources of this kind of radioactivity and represents the current state of knowledge on this topic. It also contains maps of Europe that show the levels of natural background radiation originating from various sources.
You may download the full publication of European Atlas of Natural Radiation from the JRC Publications Repository. More information can be also found on the Digital Atlas of Natural Radiation.
Monitoring Radioactivity in the Environment
Monitoring artificial radioactivity in the environment is of utmost importance in order to verify that there is compliance with the Basic Safety Standards (Council Directive 2013/59/Euratom of 5 December 2013) and to monitor tendencies over time. Under the Euratom Treaty, the JRC is responsible for collecting this information from the Member States Competent Authorities, and subsequently for validating and reporting it. It fulfils this mandate by means of the online REM database and by publishing annual monitoring reports.
The Radioactivity Environmental Monitoring (REM) database was set-up in 1988 to bring together and store in a harmonized way, environmental artificial radioactivity data produced in the aftermath of the Chernobyl accident. In this way the database has mainly two objectives:
- to keep a historical record of the Chernobyl accident, for further scientific study
- to store the radioactivity monitoring data of the EC Member States in order to prepare the annual monitoring report.
The Member States are informed via this report of the radioactivity levels in the environment in the European Union. The report can be downloaded from the REM website.
The information held by the bank covers data from the twenty-seven EC Member States, as well as other participating European countries for both environmental samples and foodstuffs from 1984 onwards. Best represented are air, deposition, water, milk, meat and vegetables. The current total number of data records stored in REM exceeds 2 million. The data is sent by the national contact points of EU27 to the JRC by means of the “REM data submission tool”, which was designed and developed for this specific purpose. Data is also available online to external users. Whilst querying the bank, the user can download the selected dataset on his/her PC in various common data formats.
The EU Member States are obliged to carry out continuous monitoring of radioactivity in the air, water and soil, by virtue of Articles 35 and 36 of the Euratom Treaty concerning monitoring of radioactivity in the environment. Additional EU legislation lays down criteria for the quality of water intended for human consumption, and the maximum permitted levels of radioactive contamination of foodstuffs (Directive 98/83/EC and Regulation 733/2008/EC respectively).
At the request of the Directorate-General for Energy, the JRC organises regular inter-laboratory comparisons to assess the comparability of such monitoring data. These inter-laboratory comparisons also provide Member States' monitoring laboratories with a means to benchmark their performance and to improve their measurement capability.