Modelling integrated transfer of radionuclides to foodstuffs in the Faroe Islands

The Faroese terrestrial environment has received radioactive debris from the nuclear weapons tests in the 1950s and 1960s and from the Chernobyl accident 26 April 1986. The paper presents integrated transfer coefficients of 137Cs and 90Sr from wet deposition to selected foodstuffs. In this context, the integrated transfer coefficient is defined as time-integrated radionuclide concentration in a sample from a unit ground deposition, as e.g. (Bq/l)y per (kBq/m2 ). Estimates are also given for the effective ecological halflife of the radionuclide concentrations in the selected foodstuffs. The work is based on the well-known UNSCEAR model, which relates the concentration of a radionuclide in a sample from a given year to the deposition rate of the nuclide from precipitation in the given year and in the year before, and to the accumulated deposition from previous years.