Field-based soil-plant uptake measurements of natural radionuclides for key vegetables and ghaf leaves in Abu Dhabi.

With the thriving fossil fuel and nuclear based industries in the nation, radioecology has become necessary for the radiation safety and emergency-preparedness for the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Environmental radiation transport modelling in the UAE and the Arabian Peninsula are severely limited, as we discuss in this paper, due to lack of experiments specific to arid desert climates. To fill the missing gaps in the baseline arid region radioecological database, especially for the soil-plant uptake studies, rigorous field works have been conducted for the first time on the soil and plant in the farms and open fields of the UAE.

Conceptualization of arid region radioecology strategies for agricultural ecosystems of the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Since the last decade, ambitious nuclear power programmes have begun maturing in the Arab countries, most importantly in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The region's environment and population, therefore, are prone to adverse, long-term impacts of radionuclide discharges. To calculate the associated exposure scenarios, to estimate doses and their consequences, and finally, to lay out a radiological emergency management plan, arid region radioecology is taking shape in the UAE as a major field of research.

Soil - Plant transfer of radionuclides in arid environments.

The use of nuclear power as an environmentally friendly, and sustainable means for energy production is heavily under discussion. Despite this recently several countries with a predominantly arid climate have sought to develop or deploy nuclear energy production systems. However, there is little information on how radionuclides behave in different, especially arid, climates.

Radiocaesium transfer from volcanic soils to Swiss chard, cabbage and sweet corn.

The root uptake of radiocaesium by different plant parts of Swiss chard (Beta vulgaris L. var. cicla), cabbage (Brassica oleracea L.

The transfer of 137Cs and 90Sr from feed to rabbits.

Radiological assessment of the impact of nuclear weapons testing on the local population in the Semipalatinsk Test Site (STS) requires comprehensive site-specific information on radionuclide behaviour in the environment. However, information on radionuclide behaviour in the conditions of the STS is rather sparse and, in particular, there are no data in the literature on parameters of radionuclide transfer from feed to rabbit products which have been identified as contributors to internal dose to the inhabitants. The transfer of (137)Cs and (90)Sr to rabbit meat was studied under laboratory conditions in a controlled experiment with 32 locally bred rabbits maintained in the Kazakh Agricultural Research Institute.