Military use of depleted uranium: assessment of prolonged population exposure

Abstract

This work is an exposure assessment for a population living in an area contaminated by use of depleted uranium (DU) weapons. RESRAD 5.91 code is used to evaluate the average effective dose delivered from 1, 10, 20 cm depths of contaminated soil, in a residential farmer scenario. Critical pathway and group are identified in soil inhalation or ingestion and children playing with the soil, respectively. From available information on DU released on targeted sites, both critical and average exposure can leave to toxicological hazards; annual dose limit for population can be exceeded on short-term period (years) for soil inhalation. As a consequence, in targeted sites cleaning up must be planned on the basis of measured concentration, when available, while special cautions have to be adopted altogether to reduce unaware exposures, taking into account the amount of the avertable dose.