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Remote radiological assessment in the marine environment: A pilot study based on Cs-137 measurements and satellite observations in the Aegean Sea

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Published: Apr 1, 2019
DOI: https://doi.org/10.12681/hnps.1864
Keywords:
Remote Sensing Geographic Information Systems Environmental Radioactivity Sea Surface Temperature Ocean Color
G. Mavrokefalou
INRASTES, NCSR "Demokritos"
H. Florou
INRASTES, NCSR "Demokritos"
O. Sykioti
IAASARS, National Observatory of Athens
Abstract

A program concept has been developed to utilize sea parameters like sea surface temperature (SST), ocean colour (OC) and sea surface salinity (SSS), in order to explore their potential relations with 137Cs activity concentrations in sea water. These relations are expected to lead to the creation of an innovative tool based on remote sensing data and in real time 137Cs measurements, for the remote radioactivity detection of the Greek marine ecosystem both for routine control and emergency recordings.

The presented results are a preliminary effort of the tool’s development. Remote sensing data have been acquired from MIRAS and MODIS instruments on-board ESA-SMOS and NASA-TERRA/AQUA satellites respectively. Satellite data comprise of SST and OC measurements. The ERL’s data of 137Cs activity concentrations (204 measurements) in seawater have been used for the period March 2012 to February 2015. Therefore, a) map analyses in a GIS including interpolation and integration of 83 real time measurements corrected with the effective half live of 7.2 y according to the monthly data of satelites and spatial linear regression have been implemented for the Aegean Sea, b) additional temporal analyses using linear and polynomial regression have been performed for the area of Souda- Crete, for which the most frequent measurements of 137Cs activity concentration in sea water have been measured in ERL.

In this study, the first derived results on the correlation between SST measurements with 137Cs activity concentrations are presented, whereas the respective correlation with OC is being under invstigation. Further investigations include multivariate polynomial analyses into the Geographic Information System (GIS) platform with more extensive sampling and satellite data from new systems, whereas comparative correlations of 137Cs with seawater parameters derived by conventional means will be performed.

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