Indian Environmental Radiation Monitoring Network (iermon)

BARC has established a countrywide environmental radiation-monitoring network IERMON. The network has 25 stations across the country.

Basic objectives of the network are

lProviding on-line information about radiation levels at various stations to the Emergency Control Rooms of DAE
l Facilitating environmental impact assessment from nuclear emergencies
l Establishing background environmental radiation levels and monitoring long term shift in them.

Minimum capabilities envisaged for each monitoring station are

l Measurement of external radiation dose rates at ground level all the time and
llAirborne radioactivity assessment on weekly basis

The Central Station of the Network comprises one PC for downloading data from remote stations through ‘PSTN’ connection, and one for maintaining the database.

To ensure uninterrupted data, each station is equipped with

l GM Counter based Radiation Monitor
l Ion Chamber based Radiation Monitor
l High Volume Air Samplers for Radionuclide Identification, and
l Associated Data Acquisition and Communication System.

The major feature of the Network are

l Realtime measurement of ground level external radiation dose rates
l Airborne radioactivity assessment on weekly basis
l Advanced data communication facilities
l Redundancy provision for critical parameters

IERMON provides

l On-line information about radiation levels at various locations in the coun try to emergency control rooms of dae facilities
l Data on background environmental radiation levels and long term shift in the background levels
l Data for environmental impact assessment following nuclear emergencies