Marine
Marine Environmental Radioactivity Monitoring Program
During the last seventy years, human activity has resulted in varying degrees of contamination of the worlds seas and oceans with anthropogenic radionuclides. The radioactive contamination of marine environment with radioisotopes has caused considerable alarm within the scientific community and the general public as a whole after the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant (FNPP) accident occurred in March 2011 in Japan. It has been a necessity to establish the baseline levels of marine radioactivity for Sri Lanka enabling comparisons in case of any possible contamination in the future.
Sri Lanka Atomic Energy Board (SLAEB) in collaboration with Marine Environment Protection Authority (MEPA) and with the technical support provided by International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) launched a monitoring programme to establish the marine radioactivity database for Sri Lanka.
Existing levels of natural and artificial radioactivity concentrations of K-40, Ra-226, Th-232, Cs-137 and Cs-134 in marine and coastal sediment collected from selected locations in Sri Lanka have been determined after Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant (FNPP) accident took place in Japan.