Reconstruction of the atmospheric releases of I and Cs resulting from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident

Chino, Masamichi; Terada, Hiroaki   ; Katata, Genki; Nagai, Haruyasu  ; Nakayama, Hiromasa   ; Yamazawa, Hiromi*; Hirao, Shigekazu*; Ohara, Toshimasa*; Takigawa, Masayuki*; Hayami, Hiroshi*; Aoyama, Michio*

We estimated the release rates and total amounts of I and Cs discharged into the atmosphere from March 12 to April 5, 2011. The applied method is a reverse estimation by coupling environmental monitoring data with atmospheric dispersion simulations under the assumption of unit release rate (1 Bq/h). It calculates release rates of radionuclides (Bq/h) by dividing measured air concentrations of I and Cs into calculated ones at sampling points. The estimated temporal variation of releases indicates that the significant release, over 10 Bq/h of I, occurred on March 15, following to relatively small releases, 10 10 Bq/h, but the release rates from March 16 are estimated to be rather constant on the order 10 Bq/h until March 24. The release rates have decreased with small day-to-day variations to the order of 10 10 Bq/h of I on the beginning of April. The estimated source term was examined on the point of the time trend, total releases and the ground depositions of Cs by using different atmospheric dispersion models with above source term and compared them with observed Cs deposition distribution. These examinations showed that the estimated source term was reasonably accurate during the period when the plume flowed over land in Japan.