aDepartment of Earth & Environmental Sciences, College of Science,
Kuwait Univerisyt, PO Box: 5969, Safat, 13060, Kuwait
bInstitute of Applied Radiation Chemistry,
Technical University of Lodz,
ul. Zwirki 36, 90-924 Lodz, Poland
ABSTRACT
During the last thirteen years, the Gulf and adjacent region has been an area of intense military use of depleted uranium (DU) munitions. In the 1991 Gulf War about 300 tons of DU were dropped in aircraft rounds and tank-fired shells in Kuwait and southern Iraq over an area of about 20,000 km2. Although until now there are no data concerning military use of DU during the last two wars, it is likely that in 1998 in Afghanistan and recently in 2003 in Iraq some areas may have been heavily bombed with the new type underground DU penetrators. Because of the high soil resuspension rate for the Gulf area, the smallest fraction of the deposited DU aerosols with particle diameters below 2.5 m can be transported with the surface air for the long distances from the source of contamination. Therefore, long–term intake via inhalation seems to be the most probable route of the uranium incorporation for several million Gulf inhabitants.
From this reason, the prospective Environmental Radiation Monitoring Network in the region should consist of the set of Automatic Aerosol Sampling Stations equipped with radiation measurement devices. Independently, a surface soil, underground water and marine bottom sediment sampling program should be established and co-ordinated by the Center of Radioactive Contamination Measurement.
Keywords: Aerosols; depleted uranium; monitoring station.