Evaluating alternative "countermeasures" against food contamination resulting from nuclear accidents

Abstract

Nuclear accidents such as Chernobyl have far reaching impacts on ecological systems. Likewise they have major implications for agricultural systems, since crops and livestock can become contaminated and rendered unfit for human consumption. A range of “countermeasures” exists, however, which can mitigate these impacts and allow food products to be saved. The CESER project has been concerned with the development of a system to assess the environmental side-effects of such countermeasures. Estimates of the economic costs of these environmental side-effects have been made for a number of case study sites in the UK, using environmental models and an original contingent valuation study. Estimates of farm level (private) costs are also included.