Front tracking of the translocation of water-soluble cesium deposited on tree leaves of plum

Contamination processes of tree components in Japanese forest ecosystems affected by the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident 137Cs fallout

In forests affected by the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident, trees became contaminated with ¹³⁷Cs. However, ¹³⁷Cs transfer processes determining tree contamination (particularly for stem wood, a prominent commercial resource) remain insufficiently understood. We propose a model for simulating dynamic behavior of ¹³⁷Cs in a forest tree-litter-soil system and applied it to contaminated forests of cedar plantation and natural oak stand in Fukushima to elucidate relative impact of distinct ¹³⁷Cs transfer processes determining the tree contamination. The transfer of ¹³⁷Cs to the trees occurred mostly (>99%) through surface uptake of ¹³⁷Cs trapped by needles and bark during the fallout. Root uptake of soil ¹³⁷Cs was several orders of magnitude lower than the surface uptake over a 50-year period following the accident. As a result, internal contamination of the trees proceeded through an enduring recycling (translocation) of ¹³⁷Cs absorbed on the tree surface. A significant surface uptake of ¹³⁷Cs through bark was suggested, contributing to 100% (leafless oak tree) and 30% (foliated cedar tree; the remaining uptake occurred at needles) of the total uptake by the trees, although that pathway still needs to be evaluated by experimental evidence. It was suggested that the activity concentration of ¹³⁷Cs in stem wood of the trees at these sites are currently (as of 2021) decreasing by ~3% per year, mainly through radioactive decay of ¹³⁷Cs and partly through dilution effect from tree growth. Although further refinement of the model is recommended, for example by including tree species specific ¹³⁷Cs transportation in stem, these findings provide vital information for planning of forestry reactivation in Fukushima; e.g., removal of forest floor organic layer will not reduce the tree contamination for a long term because of the ¹³⁷Cs absorption via the tree surface substantially greater than root uptake of ¹³⁷Cs deposited to the floor.

Speciation of cesium in tree tissues and its implication for uptake and translocation of radiocesium in tree bodies

Since the Chernobyl and Fukushima nuclear power plant accidents, extensive research has focused on the distribution and cycle of radiocesium in forest systems. Nevertheless, direct chemical speciation analyses of Cs by spectroscopic methods are limited by the low abundances of stable Cs as well as radiocesium in trees. In this study, we investigated coordination structures of Cs in ¹³³Cs-doped bark, sapwood, heartwood, needle, and branch samples of trees collected in Fukushima by extended X-ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS) spectroscopy. We examined four representative tree species in Fukushima, Cryptomeria japonica, Pinus densiflora, Quercus serrata, and Eleutherococcus sciadophylloides. EXAFS spectra suggested that Cs was adsorbed as an outer-sphere complex on all parts of the four species, with electrostatic binding to negatively charged functional groups in components of tree tissues. These results were supported by extraction experiments where more than 98.5% of the sorbed Cs was desorbed from all parts of each tree species using 1 M CH₃COONH₄. Sorption experiments of Cs on cellulose, an important component of plant cell walls, were carried out in ultrapure water, NaCl, and KCl solutions. The K_d values for cellulose and solutions were not high enough to fix Cs, considering the composition of sap in trees. Overall, the results of this study are consistent with previous field observations indicating that radiocesium is translocated in mobile form to metabolically active tree parts.