Migration of 137Cs in Soils of Erosional Agricultural Landscapes in the Northern Part of the Forest-Steppe Zone
摘要
The 137Cs migration in leached chernozems of different degrees of erosion on the slopes and soddy-accumulative soils of a ravine complex in erosional agricultural landscapes of the Tula oblast is described. The 137Cs fluxes that entered the erosional agrolandscapes as a result of the Chernobyl accident are actively redistributed and differentiated. Various factors, such as slope aspect, length, gradient, and shape, along with the presence of specific microrelief features influence the 137Cs distribution pattern in the soils of different elements of the slope. Radionuclides migrate from the upper part of the slopes, pass through their middle parts, and accumulate at the bottom. A specific feature of the 137Cs distribution in the colluvial sediments on the slope bases and bottoms is an increase in the 137Cs stock with depth. Depending on the thickness of the sediments, the maximum is reached at a depth of 10–40 cm followed by a sharp or moderately gradual (depending on the presence or absence of geochemical barriers) decrease in the 137Cs stock in deeper layers of soil profile. 137Cs contamination density increases with the distance from the upper part to the lower line of the steepest slope and, on the contrary, decreases when approaching the watershed. In most cases, the ratio of the 137Cs contamination densities in the near-watershed sites to the gully bottoms amounts to 1.0 : (1.2–1.5) and in the upper and lower sites and the bottoms, 1.0 : (2.0–1.5). The maximum differences between these characteristics are observable in the southern steep longitudinally straight and southwestern longitudinally concave slopes. The minimum values are observed on the gentler slopes of eastern and western aspects. The highest 137Cs densities are recorded at the bases and in the bottoms of short slopes, while the soil surface 137Cs contamination in the slopes of medium length mainly increases in their central parts. The 137Cs contamination density also depends on the slope gradient, which appears as a 1.3-fold increase in the density from the upper to lower parts in steep slopes and a 1.1-fold decrease in the gentler slopes of a neutral aspect. An important task in the long-term predictions of the radionuclide redistribution in different landscape elements is to take into account these factors and the observed patterns of 137Cs migration. These data are most helpful when designing the remediation activities aimed at the increase in soil fertility and the minimization of radionuclide accumulation in agricultural products.