Hi everyone! In today’s second post of the week, I want to start off by discussing the effects of Chernobyl. My group plans to present on the Chernobyl nuclear disasters that happened in 1986. As such, I figured that this post would be a good way for me to refresh what I have found in preparation for the good presentation in the last two weeks of the semester. In case you still don’t know, the Chernobyl disaster happened in the northern part of Ukraine, when it was part of the Soviet Union.
The book “Chernobyl – Catastrophe and Consequences” provides a fundamental overview of the aftermath of the nuclear disaster. I plan to use it when preparing for my group’s presentation. Having briefly read the book, I’ll give you a brief synopsis. The authors, Smith & Beresford, focused on the impacts of radioactivity in both terrestrial and aquatic systems, as well as wildlife. If you are interested in more-than-human geographies, this book would be useful for you! I should stop now before I ramble on about things not related to pollution.
Another relevant book that talks about Chernobyl is “Groundwater Vulnerability: Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster” by Faybishenko et al. (2014). This book is more useful for our module because it explains how the nuclear disaster caused water pollution. In short, the accident released radionuclides that contaminated groundwater sources, thus affecting food chains, through the water, soil, and atmosphere. Faybishenko et al. examine the hydrogeological and physico-chemical processes and factors that facilitated the contamination process. In case all of this is too boring for you, you may wish to watch these two videos during your free time. As you can see, forest fires in the Chernobyl region exacerbate pollution levels, because they release whatever substances in the environment into the atmosphere:
You can learn more about this by tuning into our group presentation. Now, let’s take a look at the other papers I found.
A paper by Popov et al. (2020) also echoes the sentiments made by Pehchevski in my previous post – Ukraine’s monitoring systems are ineffective and have significant problems. Even if there are data collection and analysis centres, results are rarely stored in paper form. To make matters worse, there are almost no pollution risk assessments on public health.
Meanwhile, Menshov et al.’s (2020) suggest a way to deal with this. In their paper, they posit that they have found a rapid, low cost, non-destructive and efficient technique to monitor soil and assess air quality. This method is called a magnetic analysis. To learn more on how it can be applied, just click on the link in the references below.
Finally, I found a paper that discusses water pollution. Briefly, Nazarov et al. (2007) claim that Ukraine cannot do much to improve water quality, and that if they were to achieve change, they had to change public attitudes and obtain funds abroad to strengthen current systems of pollution control. I wonder if this is the case of many other countries in the Global South too. What do you think?
Up next, a short post to review the Russian-Ukrainian invasion. And next week, Vietnam. See you in the next one! ✿
References
CBS News (2020) Pollution levels soar as wildfires scorch Chernobyl region. 20 April. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6feLH75fnA0 [Accessed: 25 March 2022].
Faybishenko, B., Nicholson, T., Shestopalov, V., Bohuslavsky, A. & Bublias, V. (2014) Groundwater Vulnerability: Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster. Wiley. Available from: https://agupubs-onlinelibrary-wiley-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/doi/book/10.1002/9781118962220 [Accessed: 25 March 2022].
Global News (2020) New Chernobyl forest fires push pollution levels in Kiev to worst in the world. 17 April. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6YZ_ztLmfk [Accessed: 25 March 2022].
Popov, O., Iatsyshyn, A., Kovach, V., Artemchuk, V., Kameneva, I., Taraduda, D., Sobyna, V., Sokolov, D., Dement, M. & Yatsyshyn, T. (2020) Risk Assessment for the Population of Kyiv, Ukraine as a Result of Atmospheric Air Pollution. Journal of Health and Pollution. 10(25), 1-11. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7058139/ [Accessed: 25 March 2022].
Menshov, O., Spassov, S., Camps, P., Vyzhva, S., Pereira, P., Pastushenko, T. & Demidov, V. (2020) Soil and Dust Magnetism in Semi-Urban Area Truskavets, Ukraine. Environmental Earth Sciences. 79(182), 1-10. Available from: https://link-springer-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/content/pdf/10.1007/s12665-020-08924-5.pdf [Accessed: 25 March 2022].
Nazarov, N., Cook, H. F. & Woodgate, G. (2007) Water Pollution in Ukraine: The Search for Possible Solutions. International Journal of Water Resources Development. 20(2), 205-218. Available from: https://www-tandfonline-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/doi/full/10.1080/0790062042000206110 [Accessed: 25 March 2022].
Smith, J. T. & Beresford, N. A. (2005) Chernobyl – Catastrophe and Consequences. Springer. Available from: https://link-springer-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/book/10.1007%2F3-540-28079-0 [Accessed: 25 March 2022].