BALTIC SEAENVIRONMENT PROCEEDINGS No. 59 - Helcom

MONITORING OF RADIOACTIVE SUBSTANCES IN THE BALTIC SEA
Hartmut Nies
Chairman of EC MORS
Bundesamt fur Seeschiffahrt und Hydrographie
D-20305 Hamburg
Federal Republic of Germany
ABSTRACT
Releases of radioactivity from all kinds of nuclear facilities
have to be monitored, because of special concern about these
substances for human and the environment. Therefore, the Commission
established a permanent group of experts for monitoring of
radioactive substances in the Baltic Sea environment. This group
continued the work of a Co-ordinated Research Programme of the
IAEA from 1981 to 1984 which had studied the behaviour and distribution
of radioactivity in the Baltic Sea. The first meeting
of the HELCOM group "MORSt' took place in Helsinki at the beginning
of April 1986, just three weeks before the fallout of
Chernobyl deposited large quantities of radioactivity over the
northern Baltic. By the existence of this group it was possible
to study the distribution of the Chernobyl fallout in the Baltic
very intensively in international cooperation.
The group monitors the entire Baltic Sea area by the analysis
of water, sediment and biota. The group is going to prepare a
Joint Evaluation Report of the data from 1984 to 1991 on all
aspects of radioactivity.
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