In the early morning hours of 26 April, 1986, an explosion
rocked the Vladimir Lenin Nuclear Power Station after reactor four suffered a
catastrophic meltdown which immediately sent plumes of Caesium-137 and
Strontium-90 into the air. The resultant spike in radioactivity in the border
regions of the former Soviet Union, Belorussian SSR, and Ukrainian SSR forced
many people to evacuate, and those that did not would suffer the consequences
for years to come.
As stated in the article: “The overall aim of the [GIS
system] is to identify vulnerable areas in terms of enhanced radionuclide
transfer into food chains and/or the presence of ‘critical population groups’
that suffer enhanced internal and/or external exposure to radionuclides.”
Thus, as part of the RESTORE project (Restoration of
Radioactively Contaminated Ecosystems), a user-friendly GIS system was created
to effectively map out the areas most severely contaminated by the incident, as
well as provide officials with a brief timeline of when some agricultural areas
could be brought back into food production.
This system would allow for policy makers to know which food
sources were the largest contributors to increased radiocaesium levels in the
food production industry, and also provide them with information that has
allowed them to implement counter-measures to lower the chances of contaminated
food making it into the open markets.
Work(s) Cited:
- Van Der Perk, M., J. R. Burema, P. A. Burrough, A. G. Gillett, and M. B. Van Der Meer. "A GIS-based Environmental Decision Support System to Assess the Transfer of Long-lived Radiocaesium through Food Chains in Areas Contaminated by the Chernobyl Accident." International Journal of Geographical Information Science 15.1 (2001): 43-64. Print.
Science is increasingly intersecting with public policy and society these days. The explosion at Chernobyl affected ALL life; and as we all know from elementary school science, if one thing in an ecosystem is out of balance, all of it will be. The nature of the web of life has made the issue of radioactive contamination an infinitely difficult one. From what I gather, though you could be more informative, GIS is mapping the most severely affected populations of animal and plant species. The point of this project is, of course, to restore these populations. The primary concern seems to be with getting food production started again for the economy and for the basic human need of food. Hopefully policy makers aren't in such a rush to accomplish this goal that they set themselves back by being short-sighted.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the above statement in that an explosion like that will have an affect on a lot aspects of life then just food. While this was the focus of this particular GIS project the information obtained could have been used for several other problems that surfaced after the explosion. Wither or not those aspects were dealt with in the same manner it is great to see that information using GIS can be put to good use and will continue to develop more results in the future.
ReplyDeleteIT's nice to see that GIS is able to do something with this wasted chunk of land. They are not going to be able to do much in this area for hundreds of years still, at least the GIS mapping is giving them some sort of timeline on when they will be able to get back to certain areas again.
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