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Introduction

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Environmental Radiation Effects on Mammals

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Abstract

Over the past several decades, the problem of ensuring the environmental radiation safety has remained a challenge. This is stipulated by the following circumstances. In some regions of our planet people are exposed to an elevated radiation background. It can be caused either by radioactive rocks occurring at small depths or by radioactive contamination of areas due to accidents, such as the Chernobyl catastrophe. Moreover, the number of persons exposed to occupational radiation has steadily increased due to the development of atomic engineering and the use of radioactive materials in industry, science, and medicine. Additionally, the problem of ensuring the space environmental radiation safety has become particularly real in view of the development of programs of long-term space missions, such as Mars missions and lunar colonies. The solution to this problem entails certain complications due to the nonlinearity of the effects of low-level irradiation on biota and due to the variability of individual radiosensitivity. All this calls for the development of new individual-based approaches to the radiation risk assessment and to the investigation of the health effects of environmental radiation [1–19].

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  1. Research and Technical Center of Radiation-Chemical Safety and Hygiene, Shchukinskaya str. 40, 123182, Moscow, Russian Federation

    Dr. Olga A. Smirnova

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Smirnova, O.A. (2010). Introduction. In: Environmental Radiation Effects on Mammals. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-7213-2_1

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