The distribution of the 129I radioisotope concentration in surface waters across Romania

The increasingly wide range of human activities in the nuclear field, such as nuclear weapons technologies, nuclear reactors for energy production, spent nuclear fuel reprocessing plants and nuclear waste repositories has increased the importance of monitoring and preventing nuclear pollution. In the early stages of nuclear pollution, the quantities of dispersed radioactive material in the environment can be extremely small, undetectable by most nuclear monitoring techniques. However, the accelerator mass spectrometry technique using 129 I is suitable for detecting very small increases in nuclear pollution even during early stages when contamination levels are not yet hazardous. In this research, we continue our work of determining 129 I concentrations by analyzing water samples collected from across the entire territory of Romania [1] , [2] . The aim is to map the current level of 129 I concentration in order to assess the potential impact of future nuclear contaminations at the Romanian and Southeast European levels. The results obtained will complete the global map of 129 I distribution created by Xuegao Chen et al. in 2015, which currently lacks data concerning Romania [3] .