January 27, 2023 We held an IER Special Seminar.＜Prof. Kashparov＞

In some of the classes of the Master’s Program of Major in Environmental Radioactivity, distinguished external researchers are invited as guest lecturers, and their classes are open to other faculty members on campus as “Special Seminars”.

On January 27, Guest Speaker Prof. Valerii Kashparov gave an online lecture on the subject “Terrestrial Radioecology”. The lecture was attended by the IER Graduate School Master students as well as several members of the IER and visiting researchers. In his lecture, Prof. Kashparov talked about spatial and temporal variations of radionuclide deposition densities and concentrations in environmental samples, as well as the approaches to address the related uncertainties while conducting radioecological monitoring and radiological assessments. He discussed the regular, spot, and random components that causes heterogeneity in the radioactive contamination levels measured within the limited observation areas, as well as the impact of the sampling grid, sampling area, number of samples, and local factors on the accuracy of monitoring data. He gave some advice about the number of samples to obtain average values of the soil deposition, plant contamination, transfer factor, etc., with a designated accuracy. The audience actively participated in the Q&A session, which covered issues related to the problem of outlier values in radioecological monitoring, heterogeneity of element (e.g., potassium, stable iodine) distributions on a local scale, requirements for fish sampling to determine its contamination level, and mechanisms of 90Sr uptake by fish.