Variation of radiocaesium in seawater and sediment around off Fukushima

Aono, Tatsuo*; Nishikawa, Jun*; Otosaka, Shigeyoshi*  ; Takata, Hyoe*; Misono, Toshiharu   ; Nakanishi, Takahiro   ; Miura, Hikaru*; Kambayashi, Shota*; Fukuda, Miho*; Sakurada, Masanobu*; Takahashi, Hiroyuki*; Yamazaki, Shinnosuke*

From 2016 to 2020, the Tohoku Marine Ecosystem Research Vessel Shinsei-maru conducted four research cruises on the dynamics and bioavailability of radionuclides around off Fukushima. Seawater, sediments and organisms were collected mainly around off the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (FDNPS). The purpose of those cruises is to observe the flux of radionuclides released into the ocean by the FDNPS accident and to understand the bioavailability of radionuclides. In order to understand the contaminated levels of the marine environment, the concentration of radioactive cesium (Cs) in seawater and sediments around off Fukushima was investigated. As a result, the concentration range of dissolved Cs-137 in the surface seawater near the FDNPS from 2016 to 2018 was 10-23 mBq/L, but decreased to 7 mBq/L in 2020. In terms of points, the concentrations of dissolved Cs-137 tended to decrease with time. On the other hand, in sediments, the Cs-137 concentrations were higher in the surface layer (0-2 cm) than the deep layer from 2016 to 2017 and tended to decrease with depth, but after 2018, subsurface vertical maximum of Cs-137 concentrations was observed at some stations. Although these concentrations tended to increase in the subsurface layer, the concentrations in the sediment also tended to decrease with time. In this presentation, we report on the concentration variation of Cs-137 and their characteristics in seawater and sediments around off Fukushima.