Extractability of 137Cs in Response to its Input Forms into Fukushima
Forest Soils
Abstract
In case of nuclear accidents like Fukushima disaster, the influence of
137Cs depositional forms (soluble and/or solid forms) on mineral soil of
forest environment on its availability have not reported yet. Soluble
(137Cs tagged ultra-pure water) and solid (137Cs contaminated litter-OL
and fragmented litter-OF) input forms were mixed with the mineral soils
collected under Fukushima coniferous and broadleaf forests. The mixtures
then incubated under controlled laboratory condition to evaluate the
extractability of 137Cs in soil over time in the presence of
decomposition process through two extracting reagents- water and
ammonium acetate. Results show that extracted 137Cs fraction with water
was less than 1% for soluble input form and below detection limit for
solid input form. On the same way with acetate reagent, the extracted
137Cs fraction ranged from 46 to 56% for soluble input and 2 to 15%
for solid input, implying the nature of 137Cs contamination strongly
influences the extractability and hence the mobility of 137Cs in soil.
Although the degradation rate of the organic materials has been
calculated in the range of 0.18 ± 0.1 to 0.24 ± 0.1 y-1, its impact on
137Cs extractability appeared very weak at least within the observation
period, probably due to shorter observation period. Concerning the
treatments of solid 137Cs input forms through acetate extraction,
relatively more 137Cs has been extracted from broadleaf organic
materials mixes (BL-OL & BL-OF) than the coniferous counterparts. This
probably is due to the fact that the lignified coniferous organic
materials (CED-OL & CED-OF) components tend to retain more 137Cs than
that of the broadleaf. Generally, by extrapolating these observations in
to a field context, one can expect more available 137Cs fraction in
forest soil from wet depositional pathways such as throughfall and
stemflow than those attached with organic materials like litter (OL) and
its eco-processed forms (OF).