Each year, World Environment Day is celebrated on 5 June to encourage action, to promote awareness and to organize events for the protection of our environment. Rallying international efforts under the theme ‘Beat Air Pollution,’ this year’s World Environment Day will emphasize the importance of measuring and protecting air quality, as an important contribution to human and economic development. The IAEA helps Member States to apply nuclear techniques in a wide range of environmental areas, including air quality monitoring.
The quality of the air we breathe is closely linked with the quality, and indeed the length, of our lives. Exposure to ambient air pollution is responsible for 4.2 million deaths each year, with another 3.8 million occurring as a result of household exposure to smoke from cooking stoves and fuels, according to the World Health Organization. The Sustainable Development Agenda’s third Goal includes a target on reducing the number of deaths and illnesses from air pollution and contamination by 2030.
In keeping with its mandate to promote and expand the contribution of nuclear science and technology to development, the IAEA works with environmental scientists, nuclear physicists and Member State decision-makers around the world to develop and implement new isotopic and nuclear techniques for the protection of the environment. These techniques include the study of ice cores to understand historic changes in pollution levels, and the use of isotopes to identify current sources of pollution and to predict the movement of pollutants worldwide—the data produced by these techniques all contribute to efforts to improve and ensure air quality.
Often implemented through its technical cooperation (TC) programme with the support of its Environment Laboratories, recent achievements realized by the IAEA include:
Most air pollution is caused by industrial, agricultural or other anthropogenic activities. However, some pollutants occur naturally—radon, for instance, is a radioactive gas which is produced in uranium ores and diffuses into the atmosphere. For most people, radon is the largest source of radiation exposure throughout their lifetime.
The IAEA recently hosted a 90-minute webinar to support the dissemination of policies to prevent and mitigate indoor radon exposure and to promote awareness for the issue. Available here, the web-based seminar clarified how to test building materials for the presence of natural radionuclides, explored best practices in construction and reminded participants of the principles of radon mitigation.
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