Radionuclide biological half-life values for terrestrial and aquatic wildlife

Radionuclide biological half-life values for terrestrial and aquatic wildlife

 

 

AbstractThe equilibrium concentration ratio is typically the parameter used to estimate organism activity concentrations within wildlife dose assessment tools. Whilst this is assumed to be fit for purpose, there are scenarios such as accidental or irregular, fluctuating, releases from licensed facilities when this might not be the case. In such circumstances, the concentration ratio approach may under- or over-estimate radiation exposure depending upon the time since the release. To carrying out assessments for such releases, a dynamic approach is needed. The simplest and most practical option is representing the uptake and turnover processes by first-order kinetics, for which organism- and element-specific biological half-life data are required. In this paper we describe the development of a freely available international database of radionuclide biological half-life values. The database includes 1907 entries for terrestrial, freshwater, riparian and marine organisms. Biological half-life values are reported for 52 elements across a range of wildlife groups (marine = 9, freshwater = 10, terrestrial = 7 and riparian = 3 groups). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvrad.2015.08.018
STAR partnerNERC-CEH, IRSN, SCK•CEN, Ciemat (+ non-STAR contributors)
Type of dataReview compilation
Sample numberc.2000
Quality

An independent quality check was conducted by co-authors not involved in the actual data compilation. As a minimum, 10% of the entered data were confirmed by going back to the source reference. Additionally, for some key data sources all entries were checked. Any issues raised were investigated and corrected as required in consultation with the originators of those entries in the database. Some of the compiled data had been used in the development of modelling approaches during the course of compiling the database; these were subject to additional quality checking.

Approximately 40% of entries were quality controlled as described above (all QC'ed entries are clearly marked). The database was also reviewed forduplicate entries and the few identified removed.

Spatially referencedNo
Ecosystem typeTerrestrial, freshwater, marine, brackish
Sample typeBiota
Daten/a
LanguagesEnglish
StatusCompleted study
Obtain data

Freely available from: http://doi.org/10.5285/b95c2ea7-47d2-4816-b942-68779c59bc4d

Key reference sources
  • Beresford, N.A., Beaugelin-Seiller, K.,Burgos, J., Cujic, M., fesenko, S., Kryshev, A., Pachal., N., Real, A., Su, B.S., Tagami, K.,  Vives I Batlle, J., Vives-Lynch, S., Wells, C., Wood, W.D.2015. Radionuclide biological half-life values for terrestrial and aquatic wildlife. J. Environ. Radioact. 150, 270-276.
  • Beresford, N.A., Beaugelin-Seiller, K., Wells, C., Vives-Lynch, S., Wood, M.D.,Tagami, K., Real, A., Burgos, J., Fesenko, S., Cujic, M., Kryshev, A., Pachal, N., Su, B.S., Barnett, C.L., Uchida, S., Hinton, T., Mihalík, J., Stark, K., Willrodt, C., Chaplow, J.S.  2015. A database of radionuclide biological half-life values for wildlife NERC-Environmental Information Data Centre. http://dx.doi.org/10.5285/b95c2ea7-47d2-4816-b942-68779c59bc4d
Data ownership 
Database formatcsv
Figure informationCredits: TREE project and Nick Beresford (NERC-CEH)
Keywords

freshwater , marine , terrestrial , wildlife , international

 

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