Remote sensing the radionuclide contaminated Belarusian landscape: a potential for imaging spectrometry?

Abstract

The 1986 Chernobyl accident resulted in radionuclide contamination (dominated by 137 Cs) across large areas of Belarus. Consequences of this accident continue to affect Belarus long after initial contamination, which in turn has placed strain upon social, economic and political infrastructures. One method to reduce this strain and remediate contamination is to return areas of land no longer posing a risk, back to an appropriate use. As a method of remediation, this requires regular and accurate monitoring of the landscape at which existing ground based techniques have not been entirely well-suited. Remote sensing, specifically the use of imaging spectrometry offers the potential to monitor the Belarusian landscape at opportune spatial and temporal resolutions. Vegetation has been shown to be an important agent in the cycling of radioactive isotopes in the environment and therefore a useful indicator of radionuclide contamination. This pilot research has focused on assessing the spectral response from Pinus sylvestris (dominant on the Belarusian landscape) at differing ages and with varying levels of 137 Cs contamination. Continuum removal was applied to the spectra showing that for older forests (c. 35 years) significant spectral differences between low and high contaminated sites exist at wavelengths that are causally related to foliar biochemicals. This was not the case for young forests (c. 15 years) where no significant differences were found. The results signify the potential to infer contamination levels from spectra of forests, partitioned by age, thus indicating the possibility of using imaging spectrometry to monitor radionuclide contamination, a possibility warranting further investigation.

Screening of transgenic maize using near infrared spectroscopy and chemometric techniques

“…The peak near 1167 nm is caused by the C-H stretching 2 nd overtone of CH 3 and -CH 2 -groups, and that at 1413 nm by the C-H stretching and C-H deformation vibration of CH 3 and -CH 2 -groups, respectively (Schaefer et al, 2013). The peak near 1444 nm is consistent with the N-H stretch (Boyd et al, 2006). Furthermore, a peak near 1520 nm is assigned to N-H stretch vibration (Minami & Iwahashi, 2011).…”

Spectral changes in the leaves of barley plant due to phytoremediation of metals—results from a pot study

“…6). According to Curran [1989], Boyd et al [2006], absorption features in visible region (at 495 and 680 nm) can be related to chlorophyll, 970 nm to water, at 1165 nm to biochemical of lignin, 1435 nm to water or nitrogen, 1780 nm to cellulose or lignin, and 1925 nm to cellulose or water. This was not the case, however, for As-and multi-metals treated plants, which had shallowest BDs relative to control on 1-and 3-months except low levels on 1-month (Fig.…”

Detecting the effects of hydrocarbon pollution in the Amazon forest using hyperspectral satellite images

“…Approaches to using these data include the use of both broad-and narrow-band vegetation indices (e.g., (Blackburn, 2007)) and red edge position location (e.g., (Dawson and Curran, 1998)). Their success may vary between species and pollutant (Steven et al, 1990;Sims and Gamon, 2002), however, previously these techniques have been used to detect vegetation contamination by heavy metals (Kooistra et al, 2003;Rosso et al, 2005), radioactive materials (Davids and Tyler, 2003;Boyd et al, 2006), as well as hydrocarbons (Smith et al, 2005b;Jago et al, 1999;Noomen et al, 2008;Noomen and Skidmore, 2009;Zhu et al, 2013) and herbicides (Dash and Curran, 2006).…”