Abstract
Radiocesium concentrations in some freshwater fish caught in rivers in Fukushima are higher than the Japanese limit for general foodstuffs. Fish living in mountain streams are affected by radiocesium discharge from forest catchments into rivers. During the decade since the accident at Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant, radiocesium intercepted by the tree canopy in nearby forests has gradually migrated to the forest floor via precipitation and litterfall, while that in the litter layer of the forest floor has slowly migrated deeper belowground. In this study, the relationship between radiocesium migration in forests and fish contamination was analyzed using a model and environmental monitoring data. It was estimated that forest sources of radiocesium that transferred to fish changed over time. In the first few years after the accident, the main sources were leaves that fell directly into rivers and onto the litter layer of the forest floor, which led to a fast decrease in radiocesium concentrations in fish. After this period, the main source became the organic soil underlying the litter layer. This resulted in a slower decrease in radiocesium concentrations in fish. The behavior of radiocesium in organic soil is key to predicting radiocesium concentrations in freshwater fish living in mountain streams.
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I am grateful to anonymous referees for their reviews of and comments on the manuscript. I appreciate members of the Collaborative Laboratories for Advanced Decommissioning Science of the JAEA for their support of the study.
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Kurikami, H. (2021). Radiocesium Transfer from Forest Catchment to Freshwater Fish Living in Mountain Streams Estimated from Environmental Monitoring Data in Fukushima Prefecture. In: Nagao, S. (eds) Impacts of Fukushima Nuclear Accident on Freshwater Environments. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-3671-4_14
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