“…An emerging technology combining a drone with a highly sensitive gamma-ray detector will be deployed in coming months to monitor radiation at contaminated uranium legacy sites in Central Asia. These sites are former uranium mining and processing areas in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan and this advanced drone technology will support the safe and secure monitoring of radiation levels at these sites.

“Uranium mining and processing in this region between the 1940s and 1990s has left behind a number of radioactively contaminated uranium legacy sites,” said Sven Altfelder, an IAEA remediation safety specialist, adding that ‘experts in Central Asia monitor these sites for radioactivity on foot, wearing backpacks equipped with gamma-ray spectrometers that detect the presence of natural radionuclides, including uranium.”

As most of the uranium legacy sites lie in difficult-to-reach mountainous and seismically active areas, monitoring with backpacks is challenging and less efficient, he said…”