Health impacts of large releases of radionuclides. Physical transport and chemical and biological processes in agricultural systems.

The purpose of radioecological models is to make realistic estimates of doses to the public after accidental releases of radionuclides into the environment. Important physical, chemical and biological processes involved in the dispersion and transport of radioactive substances in the atmosphere and along the food-chains are presented. The results of the EURAD (EURopean Acid Deposition) model, predicting the deposition patterns of 131I and 137Cs in Belarus and Ukraine after the Chernobyl accident, are discussed. An overview of the most important ecological processes--such as deposition, interception and translocation, weathering, transfers from soil to plants and from plants to animal/animal products, and seasonality in agricultural environments--is given. Examples corresponding to these individual processes, mainly experimental results after the Chernobyl accident and related to radiocaesium and radioiodine, are shown and discussed.