Impact of fluvial discharge on 137Cs in the ocean following the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station accident

Daisuke Tsumune; Takaki Tsubono; Kazuhiro Misumi; Kazuyuki Sakuma; Yuichi Onda

doi:10.1515/pac-2023-0902

Published online by De Gruyter March 12, 2024

Impact of fluvial discharge on ¹³⁷Cs in the ocean following the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station accident

Daisuke Tsumune , Takaki Tsubono , Kazuhiro Misumi , Kazuyuki Sakuma and Yuichi Onda

From the journal Pure and Applied Chemistry

https://doi.org/10.1515/pac-2023-0902

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Abstract

After the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station (F1NPS) accident, ¹³⁷Cs activity concentrations have not yet decreased to pre-accident levels because of direct release from the site and fluvial discharges of ¹³⁷Cs deposited on land. It is necessary to consider dispersion processes in the coastal area to understand the impact of multiple river discharges and direct release. To achieve this goal, we carried out oceanic dispersion simulations that considered direct release and fluvial discharges and compared the results with the annual averages of observed data. We assumed that particulate ¹³⁷Cs discharged from rivers to the ocean quickly resuspended and re-leached after coagulation and precipitation, and that all of the ¹³⁷Cs was dispersed. The reproducibility of results was improved by considering fluvial discharges of particulate ¹³⁷Cs at all sites between 2013 and 2016, except near the F1NPS. In other words, particulate ¹³⁷Cs discharged from rivers was found to influence the results of ocean surface activity concentrations within a relatively short period of time. The impact of direct release was dominant for the observed ¹³⁷Cs activity concentrations adjacent to the F1NPS, which was used to estimate direct releases.

Keywords: 137Cs; fluvial discharge; Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station accident; marine environment; regional ocean model

Corresponding author: Daisuke Tsumune, Center for Research in Radiation, Isotopes, and Earth System Sciences, University of Tsukuba, Ibaraki, 305-8572, Japan; and Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry, Chiba, 270-1194, Japan, e-mail: tsumune.daisuke.gw@u.tsukuba.ac.jp

Article note: A collection of invited papers based on the topic of “The global scenario and challenges of radioactive waste in the marine environment” from IUPAC Division VI project #2021-027-2-600.

Acknowledgments

We thank Ryosuke Niwa, Fukiko Taguchi, and Kaori Miyata for their technical help for the simulation. Numerical simulations were performed by the supercomputer system of the Central Research Institute of the Electric Power Institute (HPE SGI 8600).

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Published Online: 2024-03-12