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Assessment of Spatial Variation of Cesium‐137 in Small Catchments
Author(s) -
Perk Marcel,
Slávik Ondrej,
Fulajtár Emil
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
journal of environmental quality
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.888
H-Index - 171
eISSN - 1537-2537
pISSN - 0047-2425
DOI - 10.2134/jeq2002.1930a
Subject(s) - spatial variability , environmental science , hydrology (agriculture) , deposition (geology) , floodplain , radionuclide , erosion , sediment , tracer , fluvial , drainage basin , soil science , geology , geomorphology , geography , statistics , physics , mathematics , geotechnical engineering , cartography , quantum mechanics , structural basin , nuclear physics
Surface contamination by bomb‐derived and Chernobyl‐derived 137 Cs has been subject to changes due to physical decay and lateral transport of contaminated soil particles, which have resulted in an ongoing transfer of radionuclides from terrestrial ecosystems to surface water, river bed sediments, and flood plains. Knowledge of the different sources of spatial variation of 137 Cs is particularly essential for estimating 137 Cs transfer to fluvial systems and for successfully applying 137 Cs as an environmental tracer in soil erosion studies. This study combined a straightforward sediment redistribution model and geostatistical interpolation of point samples of 137 Cs activities in soil to distinguish the effects of sediment erosion and deposition from other sources of variation in 137 Cs in the small Mochovce catchment in Slovakia. These other sources of variation could then be interpreted. Besides erosion and deposition processes, the initial pattern of 137 Cs deposition, floodplain sedimentation, and short‐range spatial variation were identified as the major sources of spatial variation of the 137 Cs inventory.