Assessment of the radiation safety of the rural population of the Central Forest-Steppe of Ukraine in the remote period after the Chernobyl catastrophe

In Ukraine, as a result of the Chernobyl disaster, 2,218 villages and cities with a population of about 2.4 million residents were in the zone of radioactive contamination. Pollution has undergone almost the entire territory of Polesia and a significant part of the Forest-Steppe. The population living in radioactively contaminated areas receives an additional more natural dose level of external and internal exposure. External irradiation is due to the high content of 137Cs in soils, with the decay of which increases the power of gamma radiation on the ground. Internal exposure is caused by the ingestion of 137Cs and 90Sr during the consumption of food products. The rural population with the consumption of products grown in household plots, receives significantly higher doses of radiation than the city. The activity of 137Cs and 90Sr in milk, meat, potatoes and other vegetable products is grown on the backyards of residents of the villages Osypivka and Tarasivka of the Bila Tserkva district of the Kyiv region, who have been subjected to radioactive contamination due to the Chernobyl disaster. The research results show that milk, meat and vegetable products grown in radioactively contaminated areas of the forest-steppe zone meet the radiation safety criteria for 137Cs and 90Sr. The internal exposure dose of the residents of the Osypivka village with the consumption of food products is 0.065 mSv/year, and that of the Tarasivka village - 0.028 mSv/year. Consumption of milk and potatoes makes the greatest contribution to the dose of internal exposure. The external radiation dose due to pollution of the territory of the settlement of 137Cs residents of the Osypivka village is 0.72 mSv/year, and that of the Tarasivka village – 0.27 mSv/year. The annual effective dose to residents of the Osypivka village – 0.78 mSv/year, and the residents of the Tarasivka village - 0.30 mSv/year, which does not exceed the dose of radiation established by current legislation at 1 mSv/year