The atlas of the Chernobyl disaster

The first attempt to mapping the impact of the explosion.

Forty years ago, on April 26 1986, one of the most devastating disasters of our time occurred: the explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Chernobyl is famous not only because it directly affected the lives of millions, but also because - according to many historians - it stands as a symbol of the collapse of the Soviet Union: the memento of a dictatorship’s denial, servility, and propaganda, the monument of the system’s corruption.

Ten years later, the Atlas of the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone (Атлас Чорнобильської зони відчуження) was published in the independent Ukraine. I was fortunate to see the large-format, 20 pages atlas in person many years ago at the OSA-Blinken Archive, and I’ve been looking for a digitized version for a long time. Fortunately, someone uploaded it as a PDF to the Ecogisstorage portal.

The foreword to the atlas by professor Vyacheslav M. Shestopalov reveals that this was the first major attempt to map the disaster’s radioactive impact on wildlife, soil, and air. A large number of scientists participated in the work, representing both the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences and numerous research institutes under the Ministry of Ukraine for the Protection of the Population from the Consequences of the Chernobyl NPP Accident.

Daily synoptic weather maps of Europe during the active phase of accident at Chernobyl NPP.

Transport of plumes of radioactive aerosol particles over the territory of Ukraine.

Vector diagram of radioactivity releases (in Bq) constructed for the averaged wind direction in the atmospheric boundary layer

Retrospective estimation map of ground contamination with Cesium-137

Situational map

Geomorphological map

Since the 1996 atlas, of course, numerous other atlases on Chernobyl have been published. Disaster mapping has become very popular over the past thirty years (A few years ago, we also created an online atlas of earthquakes), but what came before that? Are you aware of any atlases from before 1950, that specifically dealt with natural or man-made disasters?