Abstract
Irrigation water was collected in 2012–2014 from 54 sampling locations including agricultural ponds, rivers, and dams within an 80-km zone around TEPCO’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. The samples were filtered with a 0.45-μm pore size membrane to produce suspended and dissolved fractions. The 137Cs activity concentrations of the suspended fraction in 2014 varied from 1.5 to 300 Bq g−1 dry weight while those in the dissolved fraction varied over three orders of magnitude at 0.0075–6.7 Bq L−1 with the higher values for the samples were from within a 20-km zone. In the dissolved fraction, 87 ± 9% of the 137Cs (n = 37) was in a monovalent cationic form (Cs+) and therefore potentially phytoavailable. The activity concentrations of 137Cs in dissolved fractions from 2012 to 2014 showed gradual decreases with elapsed time. The distribution coefficient (Kd, L kg−1) values ranged from 4100 to 2,100,000 and the geometric mean value was 110,000. The Kd-values were negatively correlated with the concentrations of stable 133Cs and the other major elements of K and Ca as well as with the electric conductivity measurements. This shows that increased mobility of radiocesium in irrigation waters may occur when there are higher concentrations of other cations present.
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Acknowledgments
I am grateful to Dr. M. P. Johansen for his useful suggestions and comments. We thank our technical staff members, Mr. A. Kanno, Ms. A. Yokoyama, and Ms. A. Goto, for sample pretreatment and measurement.
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Tsukada, H. (2022). Spatial Distribution and Temporal Change of 137Cs Activity Concentration in Dissolved and Suspended Fractions of Irrigation Waters Collected from Fukushima. In: Nanba, K., Konoplev, A., Wada, T. (eds) Behavior of Radionuclides in the Environment III. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-6799-2_15
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