Main sources of radioactive contamination in Russia and methods for their determination and speciation

This paper desribes the main sources of radioactive contamination of Russia and some techniques elaborated in the V. I. Vernadsky Institute of Geochemistry and Analytical Chemistry for the determination and speciation of radionuclides in the environment. Data on radioecological monitoring of the zone affecting by Production Association “Mayak” are presented as example of the use of these techniques. Some problems of the calculation of radionuclide migration coefficients and the determination of their so called geochemical forms of occurrence are discussed.