Monitoring of the vegetable garden open air spinach and soil radioactivity in Beijing during the Japan Fukushima nuclear accident / 中华放射医学与防护杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To detect artificial radionuclide content in the spinach and soil in open air vegetable garden in Beijing during Fukushima nuclear accident and to study the radioactive contamination characteristics of the samples.Methods 6 spinach samples and 3 soil samples in open air vegetable garden were obtained through continuously sampling.High-purity germanium (HPGe) γ spectrometry was used to analyze activity concentrations of artificial radionuclide131 Ⅰ etc in these samples.Results Artificial radionuclide 131Ⅰ was detected in the 6 open air spinach samples.Artificial radionuclide 137Cs was detected in 3 vegetable garden soil samples,trace amount of 131 Ⅰ was detected in 1 open-air surface soil sample alone.Conclusions Following the Fukushima nuclear accident,spinach in Beijing's open-air vegetable garden was slightly polluted by artificial radionuclide 131 Ⅰ,with the highest values of pollution appeared around April 4,2011,but it could not cause harm to human health.