The word nuclear conjures up thoughts of cold war, radioactive fall-out and threats to health and peace. In fact, our world is surrounded by radioactive materials and measuring these with sensitive instruments reveals much about Earth's building blocks, its biological systems and how they function.
At ANSTO, nuclear technology is used to address a plethora of environmental issues including climate variability, water resource sustainability and air pollution.
The sensitivity of the tools used at ANSTO provides insights into these areas, which are impossible using other techniques.
Professor John Dodson, Head of ANSTO's Institute for Environmental Research, explained that ANSTO's nuclear science facilities offer Australian researchers state-of-the-art technology for understanding past, present and future climates.
"Past climates leave their signatures in a variety of places including tree rings, ice cores, corals and cave stalagmites," said John.
"For example, ANSTO has dated water from bores in the Great Artesian basin, showing it contains rainfall that fell over 300,000 years ago. We need to know this and the rate of artesian water replenishment if we are to make use of it as a sustainable water resource.
"In these times of water scarcity Australian cities and towns are turning more and more to groundwater as a source because surface water resources have become over-exploited," he said.
"However, we know precious little about groundwater reserves and we need to get smart about them, along with developing sensible recycling and economical water use for long term water security.
"With Australia occupying about 5.4 per cent of the global land mass but with only one per cent of its water, we have problems unlike other nations," John said.
ANSTO is now embarking on a project to enhance understanding of the water resources of south-western Australia, which has one of Australia's most rapid population growth rates.
Most of the surface water resources are already fully exploited and rainfall has decreased in recent decades. Perth needs to identify sound ways of ensuring water security.
Groundwater around Perth rises and falls with the winter rainfall patterns. However, the rate at which this occurs, and the age of the groundwater, is only broadly known.
Nuclear tools are being used to measure the age of groundwater and, with the help of Water WA, ANSTO scientists will establish the age of water in various aquifers. This will help form a basis for comparison with longer term rainfall records.
John explained that the recent decline in rainfall is based on knowledge from the measured meteorological records, which are little more than 100 years old.
"We are part way through a program to generate high resolution records of rainfall variability over the last 1000 years for the region using cave stalagmites which contain the records of past rainfall embedded in their atomic structure," he said.
"This will provide a better basis for understanding recent rainfall changes and reveal if the rainfall in the last few decades is unusual, or if it is the norm."
The study will also reveal the recurrent rate of long drought periods, as well as heavy rainfall decades, and tell scientists how important tropical and southerly rainfall systems are in the mix of rainfall received.
These will empower decision makers to plan water use from appropriate baselines.
Atmospheric dust also has a direct impact on climate systems and human health.
"Australia is the largest source of atmospheric dust in the Southern Hemisphere and the liberation of dust into the atmosphere has impacts well beyond our shores, although much of this dust is valuable topsoil," John said.
"ANSTO has established protocols for measuring bushfire smoke, soil erosion, household fires and pollution from cars and industry.
We know the season cycles in the Sydney Basin and the origins of atmospheric air masses which drive some of the change and this information helps us to assist nations overseas to assess and manage their own air pollution problems.
"Overall, the growth of nuclear science is very exciting and at ANSTO our work and the work of other groups we support, needs to be better understood by the community, especially the benefits of managing the world of today and tomorrow," John concluded.