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It has been 30 years since the Chernobyl accident, which has shocked the world. Many questions still lay in how safe it really is to consume food found in our forests. The aim of this project was to bring clarity about the current radioactive contamination situation in Austrian and Bavarian forest ecosystems. Soil, vegetation and wild boar samples from 6 higher contaminated sites were collected and measured by gamma-ray spectrometry. The highest Cs-137 contaminations were found in wild boars. 26 out of 39 wild boar samples exceeded the EU limit of 600 Bq/kg fresh weight. From all analysed vegetation samples only one blueberry and one bay boletus sample exceeded the EU limit. Soil core samples revealed that 70-97% of the caesium content are still found in the first 10 cm of the soil. As a result of the low Cs-137 migration rate long time contamination with Cs-137 will be expected. This study showed that caesium contamination in forests should not be ignored even after 30 years. It is, however, not critical to consume food from our forests, if not too frequently, since e.g. 500 g of contaminated wild boar meat corresponds to the effective dose of a flight from Vienna to Berlin.

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Veronika Exler was introduced to science at a very young age through her family. Her dream has always been to become a biologist. After school she pursued this dream and studied biology and physics at the University of Vienna.

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