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Assessment of 137Cs, 90Sr, 241Am, 239+240Pu, 3H (HTO, OBT) in the fish from lakes, rivers, and nuclear shell craters of the semipalatinsk test site

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Abstract

The Semipalatinsk Test Site houses various contaminated water resources including lakes and rivers that support fish populations, which are caught for personal consumption and for commercial sale in nearby communities while farmers water their livestock from it. There is limited data available on the contamination of freshwater biota for multiple radionuclides. The presence of 137Cs, 90Sr, 241Am, 239+240Pu, and 3H at various levels in the different water bodies offers a unique opportunity to study the uptake of radionuclides in fish and to assure public safety. Additionally, information on the migration processes of cesium and strontium can be applied to other pollutants that exhibit similar behaviour in the environment. The observed radionuclides showed mostly a similar pattern to various other marine and freshwater species, with 137Cs concentrated in the muscle, 90Sr in the bones, however Crater No. 101 showed the gastrointestinal tract high pattern for Pu isotopes. The relatively highly contaminated Crater No.101 could serve as an outstanding site for future experimental investigations into radionuclide transfer and dynamics for fish and other freshwater biota, while other, less contaminated sites show a potential for commercial utilization as hosts for fisheries based on internationally accepted levels of radionuclides in food.

Data availability

Data is provided within the manuscript.

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Funding

The research was supported by funding from the Science Committee of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Grant No. BR21882086 and the Ministry of Energy of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Grant No. BR24792713 and the Hungarian Government (National Research, Development and Innovation Office) with Research Hungary Grant nr. HUN-REN RGH151414.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Radiation Safety and Ecology, National Nuclear Center of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Kurchatov, Kazakhstan

    Andrey V. Panitskiy, Symbat A. Baigazy, Ivan A. Alexandrovich, Yelena N. Polivkina, Sayan E. Salmenbayev,  Alnur R. Kozhabekova & Nurlan Zh. Mukhamediyarov

  2. JSC «Park of Nuclear Technologies», Kurchatov, Kazakhstan

    Zhanat Baigazinov

  3. Department of Radiochemistry and Radioecology, University of Pannonia, Veszprém, Hungary

    Serwaa Adjei-Kyereme & Miklós Hegedűs

  4. Department of Biophysics and Radiation Biology-HUN-REN TKI Budapest , Semmelweis University, Budapest, Hungary

    Tibor Kovács

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  1. Andrey V. Panitskiy
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  2. Zhanat Baigazinov
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  3. Symbat A. Baigazy
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Contributions

Conceptualization Z.Ba., T.K., and A.P.; methodology M.H. and S.A-K.; validation, I.A. and S.B.; formal analysis Y.P. and A.K.; investigation, S.S.; N.M. and S.A-K.; resources Z.Ba. and T.K.; data curation M.H.; A.K. and S.B.; writing original draft preparation M.H., Z.Ba and T.K.; writing-review and editing M.H., S.A-K. and A.P.; funding acquisition Z.B. and T.K. All authors reviewed and approved the final manuscript.

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Tibor Kovács.

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Panitskiy, A.V., Baigazinov, Z., Baigazy, S.A. et al. Assessment of 137Cs, 90Sr, 241Am, 239+240Pu, 3H (HTO, OBT) in the fish from lakes, rivers, and nuclear shell craters of the semipalatinsk test site.
Sci Rep (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-31374-7

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Keywords

  • Artificial radionuclides
  • Caesium
  • Strontium
  • Americium
  • Plutonium
  • Activity concentration

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