Geo-Referenceable Model for the Transfer of Radioactive Fallout from Sediments to Plants

Ahamer, Gilbert

Geo-Referenceable Model for the Transfer of Radioactive Fallout from Sediments to Plants

2012

Ahamer, Gilbert

In order to quickly assess the transfer of radioactive cesium after a nuclear incident, it is useful to know the main biospheric parameters influencing this transfer. A suitably simplified heuristic formula for the Cs transfer is helpful for further application in a Geographic Information System (GIS). In order to determine the most relevant parameters given their huge variability in nature, samples of 150 aquatic plants and the corresponding sediments of 26 diverse aquatic locations such as lakes, ponds, and disconnected parts of rivers were measured for 137Cs, 134Cs, and 40K radioactivity one year after the nuclear disaster of Chernobyl. Sediments were characterized by determination of weight loss after heating, extractable Cs and K, pH(KCl), particle size distribution, content of clay minerals, and similar biospheric, chemical, and physical parameters. As a general concept, the procedure of uptake of radioactive cesium was subdivided into the two following steps: “resorption of cesium fallout by soil” and “uptake of soil cesium by plants”. Results for the resorption by soil show strong dependence on the percentage of dry matter and on the content of muscovite (mica) in the sediment. The uptake in plants, however, depends mostly on the content of 137Cs in the sediment itself, on the content of montmorillonite (weathered mica) and on the transfer factor of 40K which indicates the potassium affinity of the 30 different collected plant species. These findings can serve to quickly and practically assess the transfer factor across larger geographic regions in an evidence-based manner. Suitable IT tools for such space-related estimations are Geographic Information Systems or Virtual Globes such as Google Earth.

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