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Fallout Radionuclides and the Study of Erosion and Sedimentation

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Abbreviations

Activity:

The concentration of a given radionuclide in a soil or sediment per unit mass, also referred to as the mass activity density.

Erosion:

The mobilization of soil and sediment from its original location or a temporary store within the landscape by a range of agents, including water and wind.

Fallout radionuclides:

Radionuclides that enter the terrestrial and aquatic environments as fallout.

Fluvial system:

Landscape systems associated with streams and rivers and driven by rainfall and runoff.

Gamma spectrometry:

Measurement of the gamma-emitted radioactivity in soils and sediment, using a gamma spectrometer.

Gross erosion:

The total amount of soil mobilized by erosion within a given area.

Half-life:

The time taken for a radionuclide to decay to the point where its activity is half the original activity.

Inventory:

An alternative term for the areal activity density, which represents the total radionuclide content of a soil or sediment deposit per unit surface area.

Net erosion:

The total amount of eroded sediment transported out of a given area. This represents the gross erosion within that area minus the deposition occurring within that area.

Off-site impacts:

The impacts of soil erosion associated with the transport of eroded soil away from the original point of erosion, for example, by streams and rivers.

On-site impacts:

The impacts of soil erosion associated with the point where erosion occurs and including reduction in soil depth, loss of productivity, and destruction of agricultural land.

Sediment budget:

A conceptual model of the sources, transfers, sinks, and outputs of sediment for a catchment or river basin. The model may quantify mobilization, transfer, storage, and output.

Sediment delivery ratio:

This represents the ratio of the amount of sediment leaving a field or catchment to the total amount of sediment mobilized by erosion within that area. It provides a measure of the efficiency of sediment transfer out of the system considered. The sediment delivery ratio will decrease as deposition increases.

Sediment:

Material transported or deposited within fluvial, aeolian, and other erosional systems.

Sediment source fingerprinting:

Use of a range of biogeochemical properties to characterize or fingerprint different potential sediment sources. The properties of transported or deposited sediment are compared with those fingerprints, in order to determine its source.

Sediment source:

The point, place, or area from which sediment was mobilized.

Sedimentation:

A term frequently used to refer to the study of sediment transport in fluvial systems, including sediment mobilization, transport, and deposition, but also used in a more narrow sense to refer to deposition of sediment in sinks including river channels and floodplains, lakes and reservoirs, and estuaries and coastal environments.

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  1. Department of Geography, College of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Exeter, Exeter, EX4 4RJ, UK

    Dr. Desmond E. Walling

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    Robert A. Meyers

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Walling, D.E. (2012). Fallout Radionuclides and the Study of Erosion and Sedimentation . 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_288

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