Computations of environmental radioactive contamination and estimates of population exposure dose for the Balakovo NPP observation zone

Contamination of air, underlying surface and agricultural products with 60Co, 131I, 134Cs and 137Cs in the Balakovo NPP observation zone (OZ) is computed. The cumulative individual effective dose for the OZ population is estimated. The obtained conservative estimate of the dose was found to be 1.8 μSv/year, and effective dose from NPP releases was equal to 1 ηSv/year. The possibility to estimate theoretically the effective exposure dose for the population of the Balakovo NPP OZ due to the past global radioactive fallouts is realized. The obtained dose doesn't exceed 11 μSv/year at the present time and corresponds to the upper estimate of the mean annual individual dose of the Balakovo NPP OZ population exposure from all sources considered.