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Radionuclide Migration from Catchments , Modeling

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Encyclopedia of Sustainability Science and Technology

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Definition of the Subject and Its Importance

A catchment , or drainage basin , is a delimited geographic area that collects water from rain and melting snow and ice flowing to a point of discharge into a water body. Catchments are complex ecosystems of significant economic, social, and environmental value. They play a major role in determining the water quality of streams, rivers, lakes. The portion of waters flowing through the catchment that reaches the point of discharge, the so-called runoff, transports dissolved and particulate substances, such as minerals, nutrients, eroded soil particles, that significantly influence the chemical and the biological characteristics of the water body that receives the runoff.

Catchments comprise terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems including forests, grasslands, ponds, etc., whose behavior is influenced by a great many natural and nonnatural factors that depend on geographic, geological, and climatic conditions and on the impact on the environment...

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Abbreviations

Catchment:

A delimited geographical area that collects water from rain and melting snow and ice flowing to a point of discharge into a water body.

Deposit:

Radionuclide inventory in a catchment, often expressed as radionuclide per square meter (Bq m−2).

Radionuclide deposition:

The process of migration to exposed surfaces of a radionuclide dispersed in the atmosphere.

Radionuclide washout:

The process of migration of a radionuclide transported by runoff waters from the catchment to a water body.

Runoff:

The portion of precipitation on a catchment that is discharged into a water body.

Transfer function:

(of radionuclide deposited over a catchment) The amount of radionuclide flowing per unit time from upstream drainage basin to a water body following a single-pulse deposition of radioactive substance.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. ENEA, CR Casaccia, via P. Anguillarese, 3001, 00100, Rome, Italy

    Dr. Luigi Monte

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Correspondence to Luigi Monte .

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  1. RAMTECH LIMITED, Larkspur, CA, USA

    Robert A. Meyers

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Monte, L. (2012). Radionuclide Migration from Catchments , Modeling. In: Meyers, R.A. (eds) Encyclopedia of Sustainability Science and Technology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-0851-3_287

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