The possible importance of short-term exposure to resuspended radionuclides
Lassey, K.R.
Health Physics 38(5): 749-761
1980
ISSN/ISBN: 0017-9078 PMID: 7390840 Document Number: 161744
The role played by the resuspension of deposited radionuclides, within about 2 yr of deposition, in contributing to an exposure hazard is assessed. Such an assessment is necessarily uncertain because of the sparsity and variability of data on which a description of resuspension is based. In the particular application of assessing the consequences of hypothetical reactor accidents, pessimistic assumptions about the short-term resuspension can easily lead to the inhalation-via-resuspension exposure pathway during the first few weeks. This is at least as important as the inhalation directly from the cloud from which deposition took place, unless land-use restrictions are imposed.