Monitoring station Schauinsland: history and mission

Historical measurement setup for monitoring the atmosphere for artificial radioactivity (1960s)

Shortly after World War II (1946), a group of scientists from the Institute of Physics of the Albert-Ludwigs-University in Freiburg led by of Prof. Wolfgang Gentner and Dr. Albert Sittkus started to conduct experiments on Mt Schauinsland in the Black Forest to charaterise the cosmic radiation.

In spring of 1953, the researchers for the first time detected fallout from nuclear weapons tests in precipitation samples. As a result, a permanent monitoring station was established on Mt Schauinsland (1200 meters above sea level) for the continuous, long-term monitoring of the atmosphere for artificial and natural radioactivity. In 1957 the station started operation.

In the following years, monitoring the environment for radioactive substances became more and more important due to the increasing military and civil use of nuclear energy. New methods for nuclide-specific measurements of radioactive substances bound to airborne dust and for the measurement of radioactive noble gases in air were developed. One of these systems has been in continuous operation since 1957. Up-to-date data are made available on the Internet on a weekly basis.

Until 1982: Freiburg-Schauinsland branch of the Max Planck Institute

Up until 1980, radioactive substances from atmospheric nuclear weapons tests were detected several times at the station, the last test being Lop Nor, China.

From 1958 to 1982 the monitoring station and the Freiburg laboratory, in its capacity as the "Freiburg-Schauinsland branch", was part of the Max-Planck-Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg.

As the "Institute for Atmospheric Radioactivity" (IAR), the facilities were merged into the Federal Office of Civil Defence (BZS) in 1982.

1989: The monitoring station is integrated into the newly founded BfS

The Schauinsland monitoring station of the BfS with the new building containing measuring equipment for monitoring the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty.

The radioactive cloud from the reactor disaster in Chornobyl (Russian: Chernobyl) was also detected at the monitoring station on Mt Schauinsland. Following the reactor disaster, the Freiburg research group and the Schauinsland station were integrated into the newly founded Federal Office for Radiation Protection (BfS) and the range of tasks was continuously extended to include the field of "emergency preparedness". This also entailed continually increasing cooperation with other countries in the areas of

• monitoring networks,
• data exchange and
• the development of common strategies for nuclear emergencies.

The area of trace analysis was augmented by

• high airflow air samplers,
• methods for the nuclide-specific determination of trace amounts of α-, β- and γ-emitters in ground-level air as well as
• automatic systems for highly sensitive radioactive airborne dust and noble gas measurements.

Monitoring station is integrated into national and international measuring networks and extended with a new building

Continuous measurements - not only on Mt Schauinsland but also worldwide - have become increasingly important over the years. Today the monitoring station is integrated into national (Integrated Measurement and Information System, IMIS) and international monitoring networks (Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, CTBT, "Sparse Network" according to Art. 35/36 EURATOM).

In addition to highly sensitive monitoring equipment for trace analysis, the station has a multitude of monitoring systems used for gathering data in real time in the context of emergency preparedness.

In 2018, the station was extended by a new annex that meets the current infrastructure and work health & safety requirements for new CTBTO measurement technology. In the new annex the latest version of the fully automatic air sampler RASA is installed for monitoring the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. The new RASA was recertified according to CTBTO specifications in October 2018 and is thus an official part of the CTBTO measurement network.

In the new annex, a prototype of a state-of-the-art noble gas measurement system with a high temporal resolution (6-hour sampling cycle) and a high detection sensitivity was operated over a period of 6 months in 2021 to test its suitability for the CTBTO's noble gas measurement network. The test of the new system was successful and officially completed in January 2022. Thus, the CTBTO has access to an additional system for the automated measurement of radioactive xenon in the atmosphere.