Factors controlling dissolved Cs concentrations in east Japanese rivers

Tsuji, Hideki*; Ishii, Yumiko*; Shin, M.*; Taniguchi, Keisuke*; Arai, Hirotsugu*; Kurihara, Momo*; Yasutaka, Tetsuo*; Kuramoto, Takayuki*; Nakanishi, Takahiro   ; Lee, S*; Shinano, Takuro*; Onda, Yuichi*; Hayashi, Seiji*

To investigate the main factors that control the dissolved radiocesium concentration in river water in the area affected by the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident, the correlations between the dissolved Cs concentrations at 66 sites normalized to the average Cs inventories for the watersheds with the land use, soil components, topography, and water quality factors were assessed. We found that the topographic wetness index is significantly and positively correlated with the normalized dissolved Cs concentration. Similar positive correlations have been found for European rivers because wetland areas with boggy organic soils that weakly retain Cs are mainly found on plains. However, for small Japanese river watersheds, the building area ratio in the watershed strongly affected the dissolved Cs concentration.