Changes in the soil to brown rice concentration ratio of radiocaesium before and after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident in 2011

Tagami, Keiko; Tsukada, Hirofumi; Uchida, Shigeo; Howard, Brenda J. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9698-9524. 2018 Changes in the soil to brown rice concentration ratio of radiocaesium before and after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident in 2011. Environmental Science & Technology, 52 (15). 8339-8345. 10.1021/acs.est.8b01745

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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.8b01745

Abstract/Summary

Radiocaesium (RCs) mobility in soil is initially relatively high when the nuclide first comes into contact with soil, after which the mobile fraction decreases with time due to RCs fixation to soil particles (aging effect). Consequently, the RCs activity concentration in plants grown in soil was expected to decrease with time after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident in 2011. In this study, we collated data on concentration ratios (CR) of RCs between brown rice grain and paddy soil and compared CR values reported for periods before and after the accident. For this purpose, soil and rice data were collected after the accident specifically from paddy fields that did not have additional potassium fertilizer added (for remediation purposes). The geometric mean rice/soil CR of RCs for all types of soil was 1.2 × 10–2 in 2011 (n = 62) and by 2013 the value had declined to 3.5 × 10–3 (n = 32), which was similar to that for 1995–2007 of 3.4 × 10–3 (n = 120). The comparison suggests that the mean soil-to-rice grain concentration ratio had returned to that prevailing before the accident after less than three years. It was also confirmed that CR values for rice sampled from paddy fields were lower than those obtained from pot experiments.

Item Type:	Publication - Article
Digital Object Identifier (DOI):	10.1021/acs.est.8b01745
UKCEH and CEH Sections/Science Areas:	UKCEH Fellows
ISSN:	0013-936X
Additional Keywords:	radioecology
NORA Subject Terms:	Ecology and Environment Agriculture and Soil Science
Date made live:	09 Aug 2018 13:01 +0 (UTC)
URI:	https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/520682

Item Type:

Publication - Article

Digital Object Identifier (DOI):

10.1021/acs.est.8b01745

UKCEH and CEH Sections/Science Areas:

UKCEH Fellows

ISSN:

0013-936X

Additional Keywords:

radioecology

NORA Subject Terms:

Ecology and Environment
Agriculture and Soil Science