Report on the radiological situation in the Czech Republic in 2002

The results of systematic radioactivity monitoring in the Czech Republic are presented. The first part of the report contains the results of environmental measurements carried out by the National Radiation Monitoring Network in compliance with the monitoring programme. The monitoring programme is aimed at measuring the radionuclide activity and ionising radiation dose rate distribution over the Czech Republic with a view to deriving the long-time trends and detecting deviations from them at an early stage. No extraordinary radioactivity release into the environment occurred in the Czech Republic during 2002. Variations in the observed dose rates were caused by fluctuations of the environmental background. The second part of the report is concerned with the monitoring of effluents from Czech nuclear facilities and radioactivity in their vicinity. As in the previous years, radioactive effluents from the Dukovany and Temelin NPPs were very low and no differences were found between the radionuclide contents of environmental samples from the surroundings of the Dukovany and Temelin NPPs on the one hand and from other parts of the country on the other hand. An overview of the results of monitoring of natural radioactivity is presented in the third part of the report. Radon and its progeny in buildings are shown to contribute a dominant fraction to the radiation doses affecting the population. (author)