Temporal variation of 134Cs and 137Cs activities in surface water at stations along the coastline near the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant accident site, Japan

Copyright © 2012 by The Geochemical Society of Japan. heavily damaged and caused radionuclides to be discharged into the atmosphere and ocean (Chino et al., 2011; Tsumune et al., 2011). In this paper, we focus on the trend of 134Cs and 137Cs radioactivities at Hasaki, a coastal station on the east coast of Honshu, and other coastal stations, including the FNPP1 site. Because these stations are located in the densely populated Tohoku and Kanto areas of Honshu, the behaviour of 134Cs and 137Cs (radiocaesium) in coastal waters is important for understanding the fate of 134Cs and 137Cs in the environment. These radionuclides were released from the FNPP1 reactors and directly discharged into the ocean and released into the atmosphere; other minor contributions may have arisen from riverine outflow carrying sediment from contaminated lands. Radiocaesium is a serious concern for people involved in coastal fisheries and seafood safety.

[1]  H. Yamazawa,et al.  Preliminary Estimation of Release Amounts of 131I and 137Cs Accidentally Discharged from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant into the Atmosphere , 2011 .

[2]  Michio Aoyama,et al.  Impacts of the Fukushima nuclear power plants on marine radioactivity. , 2011, Environmental science & technology.

[3]  Nobuhito Mori,et al.  Survey of 2011 Tohoku earthquake tsunami inundation and run‐up , 2011 .

[4]  Takaki Tsubono,et al.  Distribution of oceanic 137Cs from the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant simulated numerically by a regional ocean model. , 2012, Journal of environmental radioactivity.

[5]  Katsumi Hirose,et al.  Radiometric determination of anthropogenic radionuclides in seawater , 2008 .

[6]  Takeshi Kawano,et al.  Cross equator transport of 137Cs from North Pacific Ocean to South Pacific Ocean (BEAGLE2003 cruises) , 2011 .

[7]  Kazuhiro Nemoto,et al.  Water masses labeled with global fallout 137Cs formed by subduction in the North Pacific , 2008 .

[8]  K. Yoshida,et al.  134Cs and 137Cs activities in coastal seawater along Northern Sanriku and Tsugaru Strait, northeastern Japan, after Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant accident. , 2012, Journal of environmental radioactivity.

[9]  Tatsuo Aono,et al.  Dispersion of artificial caesium-134 and -137 in the western North Pacific one month after the Fukushima accident , 2012, GEOCHEMICAL JOURNAL.

[10]  K. Komura,et al.  Background components of Ge detectors in Ogoya underground laboratory. , 2004, Applied radiation and isotopes : including data, instrumentation and methods for use in agriculture, industry and medicine.