Fit-for-purpose modelling of radiocaesium soil-to-plant transfer for nuclear emergencies: a review

Abstract

Numerous radioecological models have been developed to predict radionuclides transfer from contaminated soils to the food chain, which is an essential step in preparing and responding to nuclear emergencies.However, the lessons learned from the application of the existing models to predict soil-to-plant transfer of radiocaesium (RCs) following the Fukushima accident in 2011 renewed interest in RCs transfer modelling.To help guide and prioritise further research in relation to modelling RCs transfer in terrestrial environments, we critically reviewed existing models focusing on transfer to food crops and animal fodders.

Microbial interaction with and tolerance of radionuclides: underlying mechanisms and biotechnological applications

“…The native and chemically modified biomass of marine algae Sargassum glaucescens and Cystoseira indica might be used as caesium biosorbents (Jalali-Rad et al, 2004;Dabbagh et al, 2008), while Pseudomonas fluorescens and Bacillus cereus have caesium biosorption capacity (Mao et al, 2011;Kim et al, 2016). However, a recent review addressing the radiocaesium soilto-plant transfer indicates that although mycorrhizal fungi can play a role in the biosorption of radiocaesium, they may not significantly contribute to its uptake by plants (Almahayni et al, 2019). The marine actinobacterial Nocardiopsis sp.…”

CONFIDENCE overview of improvements in radioecological human food chain models and future needs

“…see Howard et al, 2002). This lead to the development of process-based soil-plant models that were parameterised using commonly characterised soil parameters (see Almahayni et al, 2019b). However, the development of such models was restricted to radiocaesium (see below).…”

Evaluation of semi-mechanistic models to predict soil to grass transfer factor of 137Cs based on long term observations in French pastures

“…Models essentially differ in the level of complexity adopted in both the conceptual description of the soil-plant system (e.g. features, events and processes) and the mathematical parameterization of the biological and physic-chemical mechanisms considered (Almahayni et al, 2019). One of the simplest approaches is the well-known Transfer Factor approach (IAEA-TECDOC-472, 2010) which fails to explain the observed variability.…”