Damage indicator

There is a large number of direct and indirect consequences for health, environment and economy - all of them strongly influenced by the countermeasures and their timing.

Concerning the negative impacts of a nuclear accident, Riskmap considers the ground contamination by Cs-137. It can be looked upon as a measure of the restriction in the usability of land or, resp., agricultural products, wild berries, and so on. With a half-life of 30.2 years, Cs-137 is a relatively long-lived nuclide compared to human time scales, and thus also a measure for the long-term impact.

As a risk indicator, the exceedence of a threshold of 185 Bq/m2 (5 Ci/km2) was selected in accordance with the accident management strategies after the Chernobyl accident. In these areas, long-term measures for dose reduction (e.g., making available non-contaminated foodstuffs) were initiated in the Soviet Union.