Celebrating 20 Years at Port Hercule: The IAEA Environment Laboratories
The IAEA Environment Laboratories in Monaco are celebrating 20 years in their current location at Port Hercule, where each day, a team of scientific, technical and administrative staff work to tackle pressing environmental issues through nuclear and isotopic techniques. The only marine laboratories of the United Nations system, the IAEA Environment Laboratories assist Member States in training scientists, conducting sampling missions and cutting-edge research. It’s all in a day’s work at the IAEA Environment Laboratories.More than three billion people globally depend on the ocean as a source of income and food according to the United Nations. The Laboratories therefore take fish seriously. From mussels to shrimp, hundreds of fish are brought annually to the Laboratories for a variety of activities. This includes research where microplastics are fed to shrimp to understand their uptake and possible transfer up the food chain and projects that bring scientists from around the world to understand the potential impact of ocean acidification on seafood safety.The work of the Laboratories isn't just done at a desk or even in a lab. Sampling missions – in Japan, the Arctic, the Mediterranean Sea – form a key part of how staff collect data as part of larger international collaborations. Beginning in 2014, at the request of Namibia's Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources, the Laboratories began collecting a diverse range of marine samples off the Namibian coast – helping the country's scientists and policymakers to better understand the level of radionuclide and trace metals in the ocean. Read more about this work, which involved 40 researchers from 11 institutions in six countries, <a href="/newscenter/news/namibia-enlists-the-iaea-to-help-study-its-marine-ecosystem-supporting-key-fisheries">here</a>.
<br /><br />
(Photo: D. C. Louw/Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources, Namibia)In 2014, a "clean room" laboratory was put into operation in the Marine Environmental Study Laboratory (MESL) to ensure that the analysis results are characterized by an even greater precision and accuracy, for example providing certified reference materials. The reference materials which the Laboratories provide to over 700 analytical laboratories across the world are used to ensure the comparability of measurement results for radionuclides, stable isotope ratios, trace elements and organic contaminants in a variety of samples. The facilities of the Laboratories in Monaco don't just include the premises at Port Hercule but also an underground laboratory nearby. Below 11 metres of rock, the facility is set up to reduce the signal coming from cosmic rays - radioactive rays from outer space - and houses large, ultra-sensitive germanium gamma-ray detectors. To further reduce 'background noise', the detectors have active shielding and ultra-low background lead, which enables IAEA researchers to detect very low levels of radioactivity in a range of environmental samples including seawater, fish and sediment.For the aquaria in the laboratories to run as desired, a pumping system has been installed nearby in the Mediterranean Sea by the Government of Monaco. It is 30 meters deep and pumps seawater straight to a reservoir within the building where the Laboratories are housed and into a closed circuit system connected to the Laboratories themselves. This pumping system brings the seawater directly to all the aquaria, where the staff work to ensure the water can be adjusted to different temperatures to simulate different climate conditions. This October marks 20 years that the Environment Laboratories have been located in their current premises. The IAEA has a long history in Monaco. Beginning in 1961, the IAEA's International Laboratory of Marine Radioactivity was initially located in the magnificent Oceanographic Museum (Musée océanographique). Here, Prince Albert II of Monaco looks at sediment samples under a microscope during his visit to the International Laboratory of Marine Radioactivity.As demands of Member States grew, the expanding laboratories were moved on a temporary basis to Stade Louis II in 1988, before relocating to their current location on Port Hercule in 1998. It was on the 5th of October, 1998 that premises of 3,000 square meters on Quai Antoine 1er at Port Hercule were inaugurated by Prince Rainier of Monaco and Mohamed el Baradei, IAEA Director General at the time. Spread across two floors, this site comprises the three Monaco-based laboratories, office space, a meeting room and a technician workshop. Over 40 staff work at the laboratories in Monaco. Here some of them are pictured with IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano in September 2016.
