Effect of agricultural countermeasures on ingestion dose following a nuclear accident

Management of an agricultural food product system following a nuclear accident is indispensable for reducing radiation exposure due to ingestion of contaminated food. The present study analyzes the effect of agricultural countermeasures on ingestion dose following a nuclear accident. Agricultural countermeasures suitable for domestic farming environments were selected by referring to the countermeasures applied after the Fukushima accident in Japan. The avertable ingestion doses that could be obtained by implementing the selected countermeasures were calculated using the Korean Agricultural Countermeasure Analysis Program (K-ACAP) to investigate the efficiency of each countermeasure. Of the selected countermeasures, the management of crops was effective when radionuclide deposition occurred during the growing season of plants. Treatment by soil additive and topsoil removal was effective when deposition occurred during the non-growing season of plants. The disposal of milk was not effective owing to the small contribution of milk to the overall ingestion dose. Clean feeding of livestock was effective when deposition occurred during the growing season of fodder plants such as pasture and rice-straw. Finally, the effect of food restriction increased with the soil deposition density of radionuclide. The practical effect of countermeasures was very small when the avertable ingestion dose was absolutely low. The agricultural countermeasures selected to reduce the radionuclide ingestion dose after a nuclear accident must be made appropriate by considering the accident situation, such as the soil deposition density of the radionuclide and the deposition date in relation to farming cycles