Key points are not available for this paper at this time.
The explosion at Unit 4 of the Chernobyl nuclear power station was the worstnuclear accident in history. Radioactive fallout from the accident (directly or indir-ectly) a�ected the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in the former SovietUnion and contamination spread throughout Europe. In the 19 years since theaccident, thousands of scienti®c papers have been published on Chernobyl and itsconsequences. In this book we have tried to summarise this vast literature, focusingparticularly on the long-term consequences of the accident to people and theenvironment.There are many historical accounts of the Chernobyl accident (e.g., Shcherbak,1989; IAEA, 1991; UNSCEAR, 2000; Mould, 2000; Kryshev and Ryazantsev, 2000;OECD/NEA, 2002). Whilst this book focuses primarily on the longer term impactsof the accident, here we brie¯y summarise the history of the accident and itsimmediate consequences. In particular, we aim to put Chernobyl within thecontext of other (natural and man-made) sources of radioactivity in the environ-ment. This chapter also introduces some key concepts and units of radiation meas-urement and risk assessment. Many of these will be familiar to some readers, and aretherefore where possible included in boxes separate from the main text.
Smith et al. (2006) studied this question.