Assessment of Spatial Variation of Cesium‐137 in Small Catchments

• Published in: Journal of environmental quality Vol. 31; no. 6; pp. 1930 - 1939
• Main Authors: Perk, Marcel, Slávik, Ondrej, Fulajtár, Emil
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Madison American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America, Soil Science Society 01.11.2002; Crop Science Society of America; American Society of Agronomy
• Subjects: Applied sciences; Biological and physicochemical properties of pollutants. Interaction in the soil; Cesium; Cesium radioisotopes; Cesium Radioisotopes - analysis; Earth sciences; Earth, ocean, space; Engineering and environment geology. Geothermics; Environmental Monitoring; Environmental tracers; Exact sciences and technology; Floodplains; Geographic Information Systems; Geologic Sediments; Pollution; Pollution, environment geology; Power Plants; Radioactive Fallout; Radioactive Hazard Release; river beds; Sediments; Soil and sediments pollution; Soil contamination; Soil erosion; Soil Pollutants, Radioactive - analysis; Surface water; Terrestrial ecosystems; Ukraine; Water Pollutants, Radioactive - analysis; Europe; Slovakia; Ukraine; Cesium 137; Radioactive pollution; Statistical analysis; Soil erosion; Atmospheric fallout; Pollutant behavior; Geostatistics; Radioisotope; Soil pollution; Sediments; Spatial variation; Sedimentation; Kriging; Transport process; Watershed; Digital elevation model; Water pollution; Radioactivity
• ISSN: 0047-2425; 1537-2537
• DOI: 10.2134/jeq2002.1930a

ABSTRACT Surface contamination by bomb‐derived and Chernobyl‐derived 137Cs has been subject to changes due to physical decay and lateral transport of contaminated soil particles, which have resulted in an ongoing transfer of radionuclides from terrestrial ecosystems to surface water, river bed sediments, and flood plains. Knowledge of the different sources of spatial variation of 137Cs is particularly essential for estimating 137Cs transfer to fluvial systems and for successfully applying 137Cs as an environmental tracer in soil erosion studies. This study combined a straightforward sediment redistribution model and geostatistical interpolation of point samples of 137Cs activities in soil to distinguish the effects of sediment erosion and deposition from other sources of variation in 137Cs in the small Mochovce catchment in Slovakia. These other sources of variation could then be interpreted. Besides erosion and deposition processes, the initial pattern of 137Cs deposition, floodplain sedimentation, and short‐range spatial variation were identified as the major sources of spatial variation of the 137Cs inventory.