Individual External Dose Monitoring of All Citizens of Date City by Passive Dosimeter 5 to 51 Months After the Fukushima NPP Accident (series): 1. Comparison of Individual Dose with Ambient Dose Rate Monitored by Aircraft Surveys

TL;DR

This study compares individual external doses of citizens in Date City with ambient dose rates from aircraft surveys post-Fukushima accident, establishing a method to estimate effective doses from ambient data for future radiological events.

Contribution

It introduces a novel method to estimate individual doses from ambient dose rates, validated with comprehensive population data after the Fukushima accident.

Findings

Individual doses were about 0.15 times the ambient doses.

The coefficient of 0.15 is four times smaller than the government’s assumed value.

The method can predict individual doses in future large-scale radiological incidents.

Abstract

Date City in Fukushima Prefecture has conducted a population-wide individual dose monitoring program after the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant Accident, which provides a unique and comprehensive data set of the individual doses of citizens. The purpose of this paper, the first in the series, is to establish a method for estimating effective doses based on the available ambient dose rate survey data. We thus examined the relationship between the individual external doses and the corresponding ambient doses assessed from airborne surveys. The results show that the individual doses were about 0.15 times the ambient doses, the coefficient of 0.15 being a factor of 4 smaller than the value employed by the Japanese government, throughout the period of the airborne surveys used. The method obtained in this study could aid in the prediction of individual doses in the early phase of future radiological accidents involving large-scale contamination.