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The marine environment is home to a large number of marine species. Moreover, as the marine environment is the domain where life on planet earth appeared, the number of taxonomic classes present is considerably greater than in others. This considerable marine biodiversity, associated with numerous ecosystems and the complexity of food webs, explains the great stability of this environment. It is also a current and future source for humans, both from the point of view of food and from the point of view of biomolecules of various interests (nutritional, therapeutic, diagnostic, anti-cancer and anti-viral, antioxidants, etc.).
However, the marine environment is the final repository of a large number of forms of physical, chemical and biological pollution that negatively affect marine life. The chemical pollution of rivers and oceans has become for the public an unavoidable subject, because it is measured in thousands of tons discharged per day.
It overshadows all other forms of pollution which are more modest, but which also raise questions of concern. Among the latter, radioactive pollution is not negligible.
Radioecology, a scientific discipline born in the middle of the 20th century, has two objectives, the estimation of the fate of radionuclides in the environment and the evaluation of their radioactive risk for living organisms. This discipline is relevant to all the earth’s environments.
The design of this book follows the classical approach to risk estimation, which is divided into four steps: hazard identification, hazard exposure assessment, hazard characterization or effects assessment and risk characterization.
Chapter 1 is devoted to the objectives of radioecology and the approach to estimating radioactive risk. The assurances given by the ICRP (International Commission on Radiological Protection) until 2000 that “if Man is adequately protected then other living things are also likely to be sufficiently protected” were not at all well founded.
Chapter 2 identifies radioactive hazards. They are mainly due to the double origin of radionuclides in the marine environment. Their natural origin is essentially to the contribution of the lithosphere caused by the leaching of primeval rocks or the upwelling of magma. The unnatural origin of radionuclides is due to anthropogenic activities in the nuclear field, both military and industrial or medical, both during programmed activities and those resulting from accidents. The dominant source is however that of nuclear fallout.
Chapter 3 deals with the fate of radionuclides, which are never fixed, in the major marine compartments, i.e. water and sediments, with case studies of the impacts due to the nuclear facilities at La Hague and Sellafield.
Chapter 4 presents the fate of radionuclides in marine organisms. In particular, this chapter reports on the various routes of penetration, the modes of contamination by adsorption and absorption and the mechanisms of bioaccumulation of radionuclides in cells, their distribution into the bodies of organisms as well as their elimination. The factors influencing bioaccumulation and trophic transfers are also detailed.
Chapter 5 summarizes the radioactive contamination of various marine sites. These are mainly the marine sites of the American, British, French and Soviet atomic bomb tests, the sites impacted by atmospheric fallout, the sites near reprocessing plants for radioactive nuclear fuel and the marine sites affected by civilian (Chernobyl, Fukushima) and military (Palomares, Thule) nuclear accidents and the dumping of solid radioactive waste. The various environmental monitoring networks are detailed.
Chapter 6 provides an inventory of radiation doses to marine organisms from nuclear accidents and releases from civil nuclear facilities and the main factors influencing these doses. The systematic underestimation of absorbed doses resulting from the poverty of the available calculation tools is underlined, a deficit that leads to the use of simplifying assumptions and to the neglect of radiation sources.
Chapter 7 details the harmful effects of ionizing radiation (mortality, alteration of reproduction, effect of age on irradiation effects) at the various levels of biological organization of marine organisms from the molecular to the ecosystem. It underlines the lack of knowledge about doses received at the organ level and the impacts on marine biodiversity.
Chapter 8 evaluates the radioactive risk to marine organisms with the significance of uncertainties that affect both the doses received and their effects. The conclusion summarizes all the information in the book and discusses the main gaps in our knowledge of radioecology so that a more realistic assessment is possible.
Nuclear power is a complex scientific and technical field that has also been invited into the social debate, following the serious accidents at Chernobyl and Fukushima, as well as the environmental problems posed by the various links in the so-called “fuel cycle”, which ranges from uranium mining to the final storage of the various types of radioactive waste.
In order to remain within the scientific domain, and in keeping with the other volumes of the “radioactive risk” series, I have endeavored to adhere to the scientific truth as closely as possible. To do this, each statement is supported by at least one bibliographic reference to a scientific work published in an international peer-reviewed journal (i.e. where the texts are reviewed and corrected by peers) or by official national or international organizations working in the nuclear field