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INSIDE
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Some 25 years from now about 60% of the world's population will live in urban areas. Meanwhile the size of many cities - particularly in developing countries - is expanding beyond the capacity of infrastructure to sustainably support it. Environmental problems including water and air pollution, sanitation, ozone depletion are having serious human health consequences for many of the new "mega-cities" such as Mexico City, where air pollution contributes to 12,000 deaths per year, and Bangkok, where high lead exposure from car emissions has been found to reduce the average IQ of children.
This edition of INSIDE TC explains how IAEA is building new partnerships with governments and international organizations to assess and plan environmental mitigation, and apply nuclear techniques to help solve environmental pollution problems in a sustainable manner. These investigations and techniques involve a variety of applications, from studies using isotopes as tracers for selected pollutants to adaptation of electron accelerators for cleaning flue gases from fossil-fueled power plants. As described in the last edition of INSIDE TC, the IAEA is also an important technical resource for national programmes in water management, geothermal energy production and environmental management including the mitigation of marine pollution.
Guarding the oceans:
Uncontrolled human activities are putting great strains on the marine environment in many regions of the world. Cities such as Cairo, Sao Paulo, and Jakarta spew tons of pollution into the ocean every day turning coastal areas into dumps void of any underwater life and threatening the livelihood of people and the ecology of the sea. Knowledge about pollutants as well as their interaction with natural marine processes provide the basis for making informed decisions for effectively managing international waters and preventing a further degeneration of the marine environment. Only with such understanding can the right choices be made.
The IAEA Marine Environment Laboratory (MEL) helps Member States to address the problems of polluted oceans and coastal zones. Numerous analytical techniques are used to investigate radionuclide contamination, sedimentation, chemical concentrations and dispersion of waters among others. MEL's training programme both in-house and in the field aims at increasing Member States capacity to understand, monitor and protect the marine environment. The laboratory is also an international centre for analytical quality control services for radioactive and non-radioactive marine pollutants.
Selected isotopic tools in hydrological and environmental studies.
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