5.5 Costs and speed of delivery of results

One of the major advantages of in-situ techniques are in terms of low costs and short delay for obtaining the measurement results.

The cost of portable instruments is similar or slightly larger than that of similar performance laboratory based instruments. The exception is the case of electrically cooled HPGe detectors, which remains much higher than laboratory systems. However, the combination of initial dose rate screening campaigns over large areas, leading to a limited number of gamma spectrometry measurements significantly reduces the overall costs of site characterization. Additionally, in-situ measurements allow reducing significantly the costs associated to sample collection, transportation, storage and preparation for laboratory analysis.

In-situ techniques allow performing fast determination of contaminant concentrations/activities in many spots/areas across the contaminated sites without time-consuming sample collection and preparation procedures.