Abstract
Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident resulted in radioactive contamination of forest environment over a wide area in Fukushima Prefecture and the neighboring prefectures. In this chapter, initial atmospheric deposition of radiocesium following the Fukushima accident was estimated based on the analysis of multiple dataset derived from different airborne surveys. Furthermore, the canopy interception of fallout radiocesium by forest was reviewed and summarized according to the results reported in the previous studies and intensive field monitoring surveys by the author. The long-term dynamics of radiocesium in Japanese forests, such as transfer from the canopy to forest floor in association with hydrological and biological processes, were presented and discussed based on the field observation results by the author.
The forest area accumulated in total is 1.8 PBq of 137Cs based on the analysis of the airborne monitoring surveys, which is corresponding to 72% of total 137Cs activities deposited on the land area of Japan. The evergreen conifers tend to show high canopy interception rate greater than 70% of atmospheric input in most cases. This indicated that the canopy will act as a secondary source of radioactive contamination of the forest floor. On the other hand, the canopy interception by deciduous broad-leaved forest has not been sufficiently clarified because there have been limited data available for the canopy interception for deciduous broad-leaved species during growing season. The monitoring of radiocesium concentrations in hydrological and biological components effectively determined the transport of radiocesium from forest canopies; a double exponential field-loss model was used to simulate the observed loss of canopy radiocesium from Japanese cedar and konara oak forest mixed with red pine during the early phase of the accident. These results help to gain further understanding of key processes in transfer of atmospherically deposited radiocesium in forest ecosystems particularly during the early phase of the accident.
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Kato, H. (2019). Radiocesium Deposition at the Accident and the Succeeding Movement Through Hydrological Process in Forest Ecosystem in Fukushima. In: Takenaka, C., Hijii, N., Kaneko, N., Ohkubo, T. (eds) Radiocesium Dynamics in a Japanese Forest Ecosystem. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-8606-0_2
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