Incidents Analysis

Timestamp

1945 - 2015

Data Sources

The datasets used in this project include:

1. Isotope Concentration Data:

• Derived from Kaggle and the JRC Directorate for Nuclear Safety and Security.

2. Decay Period Data:

• Generated directly using Python in a Jupyter Notebook.
• Half-life estimates for isotopes were extracted from:
  1. World Health Organization (WHO)
  2. United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR)
  3. Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC)

3. Nuclear Incidents Data:

• Composed of 216 nuclear power plant incidents from 1945 to 2015.
• Sources include:
  1. “Reassessing the safety of nuclear power” by Wheatley, Sovacool, and Sornette (published in Energy Research and Social Science).
  2. “Of Disasters and Dragon Kings: A Statistical Analysis of Nuclear Power Incidents and Accidents” by the same authors (published in Risk Analysis).

Dataset Link

Accidents Data Website Download Dataset
Chernobyl Air Website Download Dataset

Metadata Link

Isotopes Concentrations (Meta)
Nuclear Power Plant Accidents (Meta)
Decay Isotopes (Meta)

Pre-Processing Steps (1)

1. Renamed columns for clarity (e.g., country_code → country).
2. Dropped irrelevant columns like end_time and duration.
3. Replaced country abbreviations (e.g., AU, BE) with full names.
4. Cleaned invalid characters (<, L, N) from isotope concentration columns.
5. Converted isotope concentration columns to numeric values.
6. Fixed swapped latitude and longitude values.
7. Grouped data by locality, date, and country to calculate mean values for isotopes.
8. Applied linear interpolation to fill missing values.
9. Summed isotope concentrations at the country level for a consolidated overview.

Visualization (1)

• Tool Used: Flourish
• Chart Type: Alluvial Chart
• Description:

  Displays the distribution of isotope concentrations across various countries in Europe. Each flow represents the contribution of iodine131, caesium134, and caesium137 to the total concentration for a country.

Pre-Processing Steps (2)

The preprocessing process involved calculating the decay curves of three radioactive isotopes: Iodine-131, Caesium-134, and Caesium-137. The decay was modeled over a time span of 50,000 days based on their respective half-lives. The fraction remaining over time was calculated using the radioactive decay formula. The dataset was reshaped to have isotopes as rows and time points as columns.

Visualization (2)

• Tool Used: Flourish
• Chart Type: Line Chart Race
• Description:

  The visualization dynamically showcases the decay of the three isotopes over time.

Pre-Processing Steps (3)

1. Dropped unnecessary columns like end_time and duration.
2. Removed missing values.

Visualization (3)

• Tool Used: Flourish
• Chart Type: Line Chart
• Description:

  The plot showcases a clear timeline of nuclear incidents from 1945 to 2015.

Insights

• Highlighted the geographic spread and relative contribution of isotopes to contamination levels.
• Caesium isotopes, especially Caesium-137, remain a concern today, making parts of the region uninhabitable decades later.
• The post-Chernobyl period is marked by heightened global awareness and more stringent safety regulations.
• The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster could have been far worse if not for the safety measures developed post-Chernobyl.
• This knowledge helps shape policies for nuclear safety, disaster response, and long-term recovery efforts.