The Roll of Canopy on Interception and Redistribution of Anthropogenic Radionuclides Derived from Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant Accident in Coniferous Forest Plantations

Soil, vegetation and other ecological compartments are expected to be highly contaminated by the deposited radionuclides after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant (NPP) accident triggered by a magnitude 9.1 earthquake and the resulting tsunami on Marchi 11, 2011. A large proportion of radionuclides which deposited on forest area are trapped by canopies, throughfall and stemflow are the most important pathways for the input of radionuclides into the soil of forest floor. In this study, to investigate the roll of forest canopy on interception and redistribution of the deposited radionuclides, a series of field monitoring experiment of throughfall and stemflow were conducted in coniferous forest plantations in Tochigi prefecture, 170 km southwest from the NPP. A set of 20 throughfall collectors with latticelike distribution and 5 stemflow collectors were located in the 10m × 10m interception plot, and the activities of caesium (¹³⁷Cs, ¹³⁴Cs) and radioiodine (¹³¹I) in throughfall and stemflow were quantified by using a high purity n-type germanium coaxial gamma ray detectors. Rainfall, throughfall, and stemflow samples were collected from 10 rainfall events, which includes first rainfall event after the NPP accident. The cumulative fallout of radionuclides in the study site was 3400 Bq m^-2 for ¹³⁷Cs, 3300 Bq m^-2 for ¹³⁴Cs, and 26000 Bq m^-2 for ¹³¹I, respectively. The ¹³⁷Cs in rainfall decreased exponentially with time since the NPP accident. For the rainfall event of 28 March, which is first rainfall event after the NPP accident, both the amount and concentration of caesium clearly increased with throughfall, whereas the concentration of radioiodine decreased with throughfall. For the subsequent rainfall events, the concentration of caesium decreased with throughfall, whereas radioiodine was not detected as a result of decay due to short half-life. At the end of May, approximately 30% and 60% of total caesium deposited after the NPP accident remained on the canopy of cypress and cedar plantations, respectively. These data demonstrated that caesium has close affinity with coniferous tree canopy in contrast to radioiodine, and cedar tree has greater adsorption capacity of caesium than cypress tree. Thus, huge amount of caesium still remains on the canopy of coniferous forest, and subsequently transfers to forest floor mainly in association with throughfall.