Long-term intercomparison of Spanish environmental dosimetry services. Study of transit dose estimations

This paper presents the layout and results of a three-year follow-up of a national intercomparison campaign organized on a voluntary basis among the Spanish Laboratories in charge of environmental monitoring at and in the vicinity of Spanish nuclear installations. The dosemeters were exposed in the field at an environmental reference station with a known ambient dose equivalent, and controlled meteorological parameters. The study aimed at verifying the consistency of the different laboratories in estimating the ambient dose equivalent in realistic fields and to evaluate the influence of two different procedures to estimate the transit dose during the transfer of the dosemeters both from and to the dosimetric laboratory and the monitored site. All the results were within 20% of the reference doses for all the dosemeters tested, and in most cases they were within 10%.