Elevated levels of tritium in surface water collected in the immediate aftermath of the Fukushima accident

IF 7.6 2区环境科学与生态学 Q1 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES

Environmental Pollution Pub Date : 2025-03-11 DOI:10.1016/j.envpol.2025.126040

Khemruthai Kheamsiri , Donovan Anderson , Hirofumi Tazoe , Kazusa Okada , Nao Otashiro , Haruka Kuwata , Hideki Kakiuchi , Masahiro Hosoda , Tibor Kovács , Shinji Tokonami , Naofumi Akata

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

The Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (FDNPP) accident in 2011, triggered by the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, released a substantial amount of radionuclides into the environment, including approximately 2.7 PBq of ¹³⁷Cs and 200–210 TBq of tritium (³H). While extensive research has reported ¹³⁷Cs concentrations across various environmental media, data on ³H levels in water resources immediately following the accident remain limited. This study examines ³H concentrations in terrestrial surface water collected from one week to 100 days post-accident. ³H concentrations ranged from 0.3 to 267.8 Bq L⁻¹, with the highest levels exceeding typical background concentrations (0.5–2 Bq L⁻¹) by a factor of 200. The highest ³H concentration (267.8 Bq L⁻¹) was measured in snowmelt collected 100 km from the FDNPP one week after the accident, suggesting that snowfall effectively deposited atmospheric ³H. By one-month post-accident, all surface water samples showed ³H levels consistent with natural background concentrations, indicating rapid dispersion and dilution. No correlation was found between ¹³⁷Cs and ³H concentrations, likely due to their differing deposition mechanisms and environmental behaviors. An annual effective dose estimation, based on the ingestion of the most contaminated sample (snowmelt), was 3.5 × 10⁻³ Sv y⁻¹—286 times lower than the 1 mSv annual dose limit for the general public.

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来源期刊

Environmental Pollution 环境科学-环境科学

CiteScore

16.00

自引率

6.70%

发文量

2082

审稿时长

2.9 months

期刊介绍： Environmental Pollution is an international peer-reviewed journal that publishes high-quality research papers and review articles covering all aspects of environmental pollution and its impacts on ecosystems and human health. Subject areas include, but are not limited to: • Sources and occurrences of pollutants that are clearly defined and measured in environmental compartments, food and food-related items, and human bodies; • Interlinks between contaminant exposure and biological, ecological, and human health effects, including those of climate change; • Contaminants of emerging concerns (including but not limited to antibiotic resistant microorganisms or genes, microplastics/nanoplastics, electronic wastes, light, and noise) and/or their biological, ecological, or human health effects; • Laboratory and field studies on the remediation/mitigation of environmental pollution via new techniques and with clear links to biological, ecological, or human health effects; • Modeling of pollution processes, patterns, or trends that is of clear environmental and/or human health interest; • New techniques that measure and examine environmental occurrences, transport, behavior, and effects of pollutants within the environment or the laboratory, provided that they can be clearly used to address problems within regional or global environmental compartments.