Five-year ensemble consequence maps of ¹³¹I and ¹³⁷Cs dispersion and early-phase population dose from Arabian Gulf nuclear power plants

Nuclear power capacity is expanding around the Arabian Gulf, increasing the need for regionally tailored radiological emergency planning. We use a 2019–2023 ensemble of FLEXPART-WRF simulations driven by 5 km WRF meteorology to map 14-day transport, time-integrated near-surface activity concentration, deposition, and early-phase adult effective dose (inhalation, cloudshine, and groundshine) for hypothetical releases of \(¹³¹I\) and \(¹³⁷Cs\) from Barakah (UAE), Bushehr (Iran), and Duwaiheen (Saudi Arabia) nuclear power plants. Under a standardized upper-range source term ( \(¹³⁷Cs = 85\) PBq and \(¹³¹I = 1.76\) EBq, with iodine equally partitioned between gaseous and aerosol-bound forms), impacts are strongly site-dependent: the population living in the area where the ensemble-mean 14-day dose exceeds 1 mSv is largest for Bushehr ( \(≈ 1.05\) million) and smaller for Barakah ( \(≈ 0.62\) million) and Duwaiheen ( \(≈ 0.22\) million). Plume arrival times, defined by exceedance of a 1 μSv h −1 dose-rate threshold, indicate limited lead time for several coastal and near-field cities, with most city-level cumulative dose accruing within the first 1-2 days and dominated by gaseous \(¹³¹I\) under the assumed partitioning. The resulting maps and city-level metrics provide a scalable baseline for consequence mapping and preparedness under specified assumptions.