Resources for environmental monitoring - the impact of Chernobyl accident

The reactor accident at Chernobyl caused environmental monitoring programmes to be organised on an emergency basis in several countries. The accident drew attention to the inadequacies of the current monitoring programmes and the need for renewed research in certain areas of radiation protection. The impact of this accident on the monitoring programmes with special reference to India is discussed in this paper. The differences between Chernobyl and nuclear weapons test fallout, the new problems that were posed including the constraints on the resources are described. The paper includes a discussion on the future strategies for radiation monitoring. (author). 30 refs