Transect survey of radiocesium in soils and plants of two alpine pastures

Albers, Bert P.; Rackwitz, R.; Schimmack, W.; Bunzl, K.

doi:10.1016/s0048-9697(98)00150-8

Cited by 31 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…While the linear relationship is probably justified under similar environmental conditions it has been shown to be the exception rather than the rule in statistical treatment of published databases (Albers et al, 1998;Albers et al, 2000;Ehlken and Kirchner, 2002;Schimmack et al, 2003). Thus, recent models to predict soil-to-plant transfer of radionuclides more and more incorporate soil chemical and physical properties, root zone radionuclide availability and soil/soil-solution interactions (Ehlken and Kirchner, 2002).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lower variability of radionuclide activities in upland dairy products compared to soils and vegetation: Implication for environmental survey

2007

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Contamination of the environment by radionuclides is usually estimated using soil and grass sampling. However, radionuclides are often not homogeneously distributed in soils. In the alpine Mercantour region (Western Alps, France) a large heterogeneity in Chernobyl 137 Cs deposition has been previously observed. Sr contents are less variable in milk samples than in grass or soil samples. This can be attributed to the homogenization effect of cow vagrancy during grazing. Hence milk seems to be a more robust sample than soil or grass to evaluate the extent of contamination on a regional scale. We explore this idea by comparing own unpublished 90 Sr results and 90 Sr results from the literature to establish the relationship between altitude of grazing and contamination of soil and milk for Western Europe. There is a significant positive correlation between soil contamination and altitude and an even closer correlation between milk 90 Sr activity (A) and altitude (h): A = A 0 + e kAEh where A 0 is the expected activity of milk sampled at sea level (A 0 = 0.064 ± 0.014 Bq g À1Ca) and h is the altitude of grazing, k being a constant (k = 0.95 · 10 À3 ± 0.11 · 10 À3 m À1 Bq g À1 Ca). The fact that there is less scattering in the relationship for the 90 Sr milk -altitude than for 90 Sr soil -altitude suggests, again, that milk is a well-suited sample for environmental survey. The relationship between the altitude of grazing and the 90 Sr content of milk and cheese can also be used to assess the authenticity of dairy products.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lower variability of radionuclide activities in upland dairy products compared to soils and vegetation: Implication for environmental survey

2007

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“…Additionally, the distribution of radiocesium in coniferous forests contaminated by the Chernobyl fallout clearly shows that the soil compartment is the main pool for radiocesium, and within the soil profile the more humic horizons retain most of the radiocesium (Rafferty et al 2000;Ciuffo et al 2002). From a recent determination of the vertical distributions of 137 Cs in the soils at forest sites, it was found that not only Chernobyl-derived radiocesium but also radiocesium from the global fallout of weapons testing deposited mainly in the 1960 s is still very close to the soil surface (0-5 cm depth) and that practically no detectable radiocesium is found below 10 cm depth (Livens et al 1991;Pietrzak-Flis et al 1996;Albers et al 1998;Bunzl et al 2000;Ramzaev et al 2006;Karadeniz and Yaprak 2008a, b). One quite knows that the activity concentrations of long-lived radionuclides in the soil tends to affect that in plants and its further transport into the ecosystem as well as the external dose exposed by man (Schuller et al 1997).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Activity concentrations of natural radionuclides and 137Cs in soils of coniferous forest sites in West Anatolia

Karadeniz

Yaprak

2010

Eur J Forest Res

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The surveys of natural gamma-emitting radionuclides and 137 Cs in surface soils of coniferous forest sites in and around Izmir were conducted during 2003-2004. The soil samples were collected from three different depths of 15 forest sites, particularly local wild edible mushrooms areas. The average activity concentrations and ranges of the natural radionuclides in the soils were as follows: 30 (14-51) Bq kg -1 of 226 Ra; 40 (17-79) Bq kg -1 of 232 Th; and 581 (308-879) Bq kg -1 of 40 K. Moreover, the values of 137 Cs activity concentrations averaged over the depth sections varied from 20 to 82 Bq kg -1 with a mean value of 52 Bq kg -1 . Accordingly, the levels of the studied natural radionuclides in the forest soils were within the range specified by UNSCEAR (2000) report for regular soils as well as the agricultural soils from the West Anatolia, while the measured activity levels of 137 Cs in the forest soils were still high in contrast to agricultural soils after 16 years from the deposition of Chernobyl fallout.

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“…From a recent determination of the vertical distribution of 137 Cs and 134 Cs in the soils at various plots along a transect of this pasture, it was found that Chernobyl-derived radiocesium is still very close to the soil surface and is practically not found below a depth of 10 cm (<2%) [2]. In the present study, where we were interested only in the migration rates of Chernobyl-derived radiocesium, we had, however, to distinguish between Chernobyl-derived 137 Cs and 137 Cs from the fallout of global weapon testing, because radiocesium from this source is also still present mainly in this layer.…”

Section: Soil Typesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In this one-dimensional convective-dispersive, local equilibrium, mass transport model the total concentration C t (x, t) of the radionuclide in the soil (mobile and sorbed) at time t and distance x with respect to the concentration C o t of the radionuclide deposited as a single pulse at time t=0 to the soil surface (x=0) is given [7,8,9] as: (1) Here λ is the decay constant of 137 Cs, erfc(ξ)=1-erf(ξ), where erf(ξ) is the error function, (2) where K d is the distribution coefficient of 137 Cs in the soil, ρ the bulk density and ε the porosity of the soil. D and v w are the dispersion coefficient and the mean pore water velocity, respectively.…”

Section: Convection-dispersion Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatial variability of the vertical migration of fallout 137 Cs in the soil of a pasture, and consequences for long-term predictions

Bunzl

Schimmack

Zelles

et al. 2000

Radiation and Environmental Biophysics

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Various transport models are presently used to predict the long-term migration behaviour of fallout radiocesium on the soil. To examine to what extent the uncertainty of these predictions is influenced by the spatial variability of the migration rates, we determined the depth profiles of Chernobyl-derived 137Cs at 100 plots in a 100 m x 100 m pasture. These data were used to obtain the frequency distributions of the characteristic transport parameters of three widely used transport models (e.g. dispersion-convection model, residence time model, and back-flow model). The results show that these transport parameters are generally log-normally distributed with a coefficient of variation of about 80%. Finally, each transport model was employed to predict the resulting frequency distribution of the 137Cs inventory in the main root layer (0-7 cm) of the pasture, 20, 50, and 100 years after the deposition. If only the spatial variability of the transport parameters is taken into account, this analysis revealed that the dispersion-convection model and the back-flow model always predicted rather similar, but significantly higher median inventories than those obtained with the residence time model. If, in addition, the spatial variability of the amount of 137Cs deposited is also taken into account, the frequency distributions of the 137Cs inventories in the root layer become so wide that differences in the median inventories predicted by the three models become statistically significant only after 100 years. Several statistically significant correlations between the transport parameters of the three models were also detected.

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Transect survey of radiocesium in soils and plants of two alpine pastures

Cited by 31 publications

References 24 publications

Lower variability of radionuclide activities in upland dairy products compared to soils and vegetation: Implication for environmental survey

Lower variability of radionuclide activities in upland dairy products compared to soils and vegetation: Implication for environmental survey

Activity concentrations of natural radionuclides and 137Cs in soils of coniferous forest sites in West Anatolia

Spatial variability of the vertical migration of fallout 137 Cs in the soil of a pasture, and consequences for long-term predictions

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