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Environmental and Workplace Health

Description - Figure 2: Typical background radiation dose in Canada compared to the dose resulting from the Fukushima Daiichi accident

The typical background environmental radiation dose of Canadians is compared to the estimated dose to a Canadian living in British Columbia from the Fukushima Daiichi accident in the year after the accident.  The figure contains two pie charts, the first depicting the normal contributors to background dose to Canadians and the second showing the estimated Fukushima dose in relation to this background dose.  The background radiation dose is caused almost 2/3 by exposure to radon at 1.98mSv per year.  Other background doses are: ingestion at 0.4mSv per year; external terrestrial at 0.35mSv per year; and cosmic radiation at 0.29mSv per year giving a total annual dose of about 3mSv per year. In contrast, the upper end estimate of a dose exposure to a Canadian from Fukushima formed only a very narrow sliver of pie at 0.0044 mSv per year out of the 3mSv overall dose including normal background dose.