Safecast is an international, volunteer-centered organization devoted to open

citizen science The term citizen science (synonymous to terms like community science, crowd science, crowd-sourced science, civic science, participatory monitoring, or volunteer monitoring) is research conducted with participation from the general public, or am ...

for

environmental monitoring Environmental monitoring is the processes and activities that are done to characterize and describe the state of the environment. It is used in the preparation of environmental impact assessments, and in many circumstances in which human activit ...

. Safecast was established by Sean Bonner, Pieter Franken, and

Joi Ito is a Japanese entrepreneur and venture capitalist. He is the president of Chiba Institute of Technology. He is on the Board of Directors for the Gelephu Mindfulness City in Bhutan where he is also the Chairman of the Gelephu Investment Developm ...

shortly after the

Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster The Fukushima nuclear accident was a major nuclear accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Ōkuma, Fukushima, Japan, which began on 11 March 2011. The cause of the accident was the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, which r ...

in Japan, following the Tōhoku earthquake on 11 March 2011 and manages a global

open data Open data are data that are openly accessible, exploitable, editable and shareable by anyone for any purpose. Open data are generally licensed under an open license. The goals of the open data movement are similar to those of other "open(-so ...

network for

ionizing radiation Ionizing (ionising) radiation, including Radioactive decay, nuclear radiation, consists of subatomic particles or electromagnetic waves that have enough energy per individual photon or particle to ionization, ionize atoms or molecules by detaching ...

and air quality monitoring. The Safecast team, with help of International Medcom, Tokyo

hackerspace A hackerspace (also referred to as a hacklab, hackspace, or makerspace) is a community-operated, often "not for profit" (501(c)(3) in the United States), workspace where people with common interests, such as computers, machining, technology, sci ...

, and other volunteers, has designed variou
devices
for radiation mapping. Haiyan Zhang developed a widely used interactive map of radiation levels around Japan, and was a mapping consultant in the formative phase of Safecast. The

Geiger counter A Geiger counter (, ; also known as a Geiger–Müller counter or G-M counter) is an electronic instrument for detecting and measuring ionizing radiation with the use of a Geiger–Müller tube. It is widely used in applications such as radiat ...

-like devices developed include the bGeigie and bGeigie Nano for mobile applications (carborne and walking measurements) as well as fixed stations called Pointcast. Despite being a citizen science project, professional quality and scientific grade data was sought from the onset, and the methodology and tool-sets Safecast developed and deployed are cited in scientific literature and by governments. All data are collected via th
Safecast API
and are presented on the publicly available interactiv
Safecast Tile Map
with global coverage. Safecast later expanded to offer air quality sensors (PM1, PM2.5, PM10 μg/m³

particulate matter Particulate matter (PM) or particulates are microscopic particles of solid or liquid matter suspended in the air. An ''aerosol'' is a mixture of particulates and air, as opposed to the particulate matter alone, though it is sometimes defin ...

) which also report to open

crowdsourced Crowdsourcing involves a large group of dispersed participants contributing or producing goods or services—including ideas, votes, micro-tasks, and finances—for payment or as volunteers. Contemporary crowdsourcing often involves digit ...

maps A map is a symbolic depiction of interrelationships, commonly spatial, between things within a space. A map may be annotated with text and graphics. Like any graphic, a map may be fixed to paper or other durable media, or may be displayed on ...

. As of 2020 the project has made 120 million observations and calculated mean dose rates for 330 cities around the world.

bGeigieZen by Safecast

In April 2021 Safecast announced development of a new device called bGeigie Zen. The device will be an updated version of the bGeigieNano(see details below) with a lot of build in additional features like wireless uploading of data, wireless charging, replaceable LiPo battery, etc. More information can be found at https://bgeigiezen.safecast.jp/. bGeigieZen is based on original bGeigie but uses a new sensor board, the SafePulse and M5Stack modular IoT platform. The presented prototype was built in bigger Pelican 1015 case. It is much simpler to build and can be built in a fraction of the time it would take to build the original bGeigieNano. The bGeigieZen and other safecast devices can be purchased at safecast devices shop : https://bgiegiezen.safecast.jp

bGeigie Nano

Safecast bGeigie Nano is a portable radiation detector equipped with a

Geiger–Müller tube The Geiger–Müller tube or G–M tube is the sensing element of the Geiger counter instrument used for the detection of ionizing radiation. It is named after Hans Geiger, who invented the principle in 1908, and Walther Müller, who collaborate ...

type detector, built-in GPS and logging to microSD card. File:Safecast bGeigie Nano - closed.jpg, bGeigie Nano with closed case File:Safecast bGeigie Nano opened.jpg, Safecast bGeigie Nano opened The bGeigie Nano is available as a kit, so the user needs to learn how to solder in order to build it from the supplied parts. Until November 2020 the kit could be purchased from the Kithub product page. The device was developed in collaboration with International Medcom Inc. and shares some parts with thei
Inspector Alert
detector. According to th
Safecast Github page
"bGeigie Nano is a lighter version of the bGeigie Mini using an Arduino Fio, a GpsBee, an OpenLog and an Inspector Alert geiger counter. The aim is to make everything fit in a Pelican Micro Case 1040". The final version of the bGeigie is placed inside the smaller Pelican Micro Case 1010. It features the LND 7317 pancake Geiger-Mueller tube type detector, a GPS receiver and is expandable with a Bluetooth module. The mode switch offers choice between geotagged radiation logging (data saved to microSD card) and measuring without GPS - showing also Bq/m2 (¹³⁷Cs) values. Inside the case the unit is calibrated for gamma radiation. The main unit taken out of its case will additionally do α- and β-detection for careful use as a surface contamination spot meter. Safecast devices are also used by the following institutions: *

International Atomic Energy Agency The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is an intergovernmental organization that seeks to promote the peaceful use of nuclear technology, nuclear energy and to inhibit its use for any military purpose, including nuclear weapons. It was ...

(IAEA) * Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety /

Institut de radioprotection et de sûreté nucléaire The French ''Institut de radioprotection et de sûreté nucléaire'' (IRSN) ("Radioprotection and Nuclear Safety Institute") located in Fontenay-aux-Roses is a public official establishment with an industrial and commercial aspect (EPIC) created by ...

(IRSN), France *

Natural Resources Defense Council The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) is a United States–based 501(c)(3) non-profit international environmental advocacy group, with its headquarters in New York City and offices in Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicag ...

(NRDC), United States * Czech National Radiation Protection Institute
Státní ústav radiační ochrany
(SÚRO),

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, also known as Czechia, and historically known as Bohemia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the south ...

Slovenian

NGO A non-governmental organization (NGO) is an independent, typically nonprofit organization that operates outside government control, though it may get a significant percentage of its funding from government or corporate sources. NGOs often focus ...

br>IRNAS
- Institute for development of advanced applied systems Rače / Inštitut za razvoj naprednih aplikativnih sistemov Rače performs monitoring in Slovenia with their one bGeigie

2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine and the “bGeigies for Ukraine” initiative

Following the

2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine On 24 February 2022, , starting the largest and deadliest war in Europe since World War II, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, conflict between the two countries which began in 2014. The fighting has caused hundreds of thou ...

and especially the

Capture of Chernobyl During the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone was captured on 24 February 2022, the first day of the invasion, by the Russian Armed Forces, who entered Ukrainian territory from neighbouring Belarus and seized the entire ...

and the activities of the Russian forces in the contaminated areas of the

Chernobyl Exclusion Zone The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant Zone of Alienation, also called the 30-Kilometre Zone or simply The Zone, was established shortly after the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in the Ukrainian SSR of the Soviet Union. Initially, Soviet authorities declar ...

including digging trenches or using the highly contaminated Red Forest as a route for their convoys initiated a request for a new radiation mapping of the region after the withdrawal of Russian troops. On July 20, 2022 Safecast announced the “bGeigies4Ukraine” initiative (#bgeigies4ukraine) - joint initiative of: * Safecast,

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

SaveDnipro

Ukraine Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...

* National Radiation Protection Institute
Státní ústav radiační ochrany
(SÚRO),

Chornobyl Radiation Ecological Biosphere Reserve

SÚRO provided 10 bGeigie Nano dectectors and following radiation monitoring led to over 300,000 data points gathered as of September 17, 2022. All the data gathered within #bgeigies4ukraine initiative are part of the interactive Safecast Map and the dataset is available under CC0 license.

Discontinuation of bGeigie Nano kit production, development of alternatives

In November 2020 KitHub announced in their email newsletter stopping the production of the bGeigie Nano kits after 5 years. Two devices are currently under development that could replace bGeigie Nano in the future (the existing devices will remain in service).

CzechRad by SÚRO

CzechRadhttps://github.com/juhele/CzechRad - CzechRad is a direct bGeigie Nano alternative in development. The device uses same LND 7317 (USA) Geiger tube as bGeigie Nano, same Pelican 1010 plastic case and same output data format (LOG files). Compared to bGeigie, CzechRad is not assembled from several commercial modules but instead uses brand new custom designed boards - mainboard using SAMD21G processor (ARM M0+), GPS module by uBlox. The electronic boards will be manufactured by

Tesla (Czechoslovak company) TESLA a.s. is a Czech manufacturer and supplier of special radio communication and security electrical engineering for military and commercial use. The name was originally used by a state-owned conglomerate that was the monopoly producer of elec ...

. While bGeigie Nano uses OLED display in inverse mode (white text on black), the CzechRad has standard monochrome LCD display, which is better readable in daylight. File:2022 11 01 CzechRad 001 fullres (52484894083).jpg, CzechRad pre-production prototype with closed case File:2022 11 01 CzechRad 004 fullres (52483850677).jpg, CzechRad pre-production prototype opened

References

External links

* {{official website, http://blog.safecast.org/
bGeigie Nano radiation detector homepage
* Brown, Azby; Baumont Genevieve; Kuča, Petr; Helebrant, Jan - ''Citizen-based radiation measurement in Europe: Supporting informed decisions regarding radiation exposure for emergencies as well as in daily life''. RICOMET2016 Conference poster
Available online as PDF
* Brown, Azby; Franken, Pieter; Bonner, Sean; Dolezal, Nick; Moross, Joe - ''Safecast: successful citizen-science for radiation measurement and communication after Fukushima'' - Published 6 June 2016 • © 2016 IOP Publishing Ltd Journal of Radiological Protection, Volume 36, Number 2
available online
Ionising radiation detectors Fukushima nuclear accident 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami Emergency organizations Radiation protection organizations Emergency management software Citizen science Crowdsourcing