26th Workshop on Environmental Radioactivity Held

The 26th Workshop on Environmental Radioactivity, hosted by the Radiation Science Center and the Alpha Emitter and Environmental Radioactivity Subcommittee of the Japan Society of Nuclear and Radiochemical Sciences, was held at KEK Kobayashi Hall from March 12 to 14, 2025. This workshop began in 2000 following the JCO criticality accident in 1999 and is held at KEK every March with basic themes: 1) radioactivity in the natural environment and 2) radiation and radioactivity in the nuclear facility environment. Since 2012, following the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant Accident, 3) TEPCO Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant Accident, was added as the 3^rd basic theme, and the workshop has been a place for information exchange, attracting a large number of participants, including researchers and engineers involved in environmental radioactivity and radiation measurements related to the accident, as well as local government officials and the general public.
At the 26th workshop, two invited lectures, 19 general oral presentations, and 28 poster presentations were given, with 107 participants at the local venue and 29 online viewers. Two invited lectures focused on radionuclide monitoring and oceanic dispersion simulation related to the oceanic discharge of treated water from the Advanced Liquid Processing System (ALPS) at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, which began in August 2023. Oral and poster presentations with Q&A were lively, and the coffee breaks and reception provided ample opportunities for interaction, making the experience worthwhile. Four excellent presentations by undergraduate and graduate students were awarded the Workshop Encouragement Award.
After the workshop, peer-reviewed proceedings are published as KEK publications, and it is scheduled for publication around October for the 26th workshop. The proceedings papers report numerous valuable research results, including findings from a study on the migration behavior of radionuclides in the environment following the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant Accident, and are cited in IAEA reports and academic papers. The workshop website also provides access to past proceedings since 2013, and the “Summary of environmental radioactivity research in the five years since the accident at TEPCO Fukushima Daiichi NPP - focusing on presentations at the Workshop on Environmental Radioactivity” (published in 2016) is available on the workshop website.

• Website of the Workshop on Environmental Radioactivity (in Japanese)