An updated review on tritium in the environment

Eyrolle, Frédérique; Ducros, Loïc; Dizès, S. Le; Beaugelin­-Seiller, K.; Charmasson, Sabine; Boyer, Patrick; Cossonnet, C.

doi:10.1016/j.jenvrad.2017.11.001

Cited by 103 publications

(58 citation statements)

References 90 publications

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“…These isoscapes (Kern et al, 2019) can serve as a reference dataset for studies on infiltration dynamics, water transport through various compartments of the hydrological cycle, mixing processes, and run-off modeling, for example, to estimate mean residence time in surface waters and groundwater (Kanduč et al, 2014;Ozyurt et al, 2014;Szucs et al, 2015). As a specific type of hydrogeological application, the regional model of 3 H time series will serve as a benchmark in estimating the mean infiltration age of drip water (Kluge et al, 2010), which can provide an additional tool for ongoing cave monitoring studies from the region (e.g Czuppon et al, 2018Czuppon et al, , 2013Fehér et al, 2016;Surić et al, 2010) in a spatiotemporally accurate way.…”

Section: Possibility Of Applications (Outlook and Conclusion)mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Tritium is an excellent tracer for determining time scales for the mixing and flow of waters and is ideal for studying processes that occur on a time scale of fewer than 100 years (Kendall and McDonnell, 2012). It proved to be a powerful tool in various applications in hydrological research (Jasechko, 2019), such as estimating mean residence time for surface water and groundwater (Michel, 1992;Stewart and Morgenstern, 2016;Zuber et al, 2001), dating cave drip waters (Kluge et al, 2010), understanding water circulation and mixing in geothermal (Ansari et al, 2017;Chatterjee et al, 2019) or permafrost settings (Gibson et al, 2016), and many other fields (Eyrolle et al, 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Isoscape of amount-weighted annual mean precipitation tritium (3H) activity from 1976 to 2017 for the Adriatic–Pannonian region – AP3H_v1 database

Kern

Erdélyi²,

Vreča

et al. 2020

Earth Syst. Sci. Data

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Abstract. Tritium (3H) as a constituent of the water molecule is an important natural tracer in hydrological sciences. The anthropogenic tritium introduced into the atmosphere unintentionally became an excellent tracer of processes on a time scale of up to 100 years. A prerequisite for tritium applications is to know the distribution of tritium activity in precipitation. Here we present a database of isoscapes derived from 41 stations for amount-weighted annual mean tritium activity in precipitation for the period 1976 to 2017 on spatially continuous interpolated 1 km×1 km grids for the Adriatic–Pannonian region (called the AP3H_v1 database), with a special focus on post-2010 years, which are not represented by existing global models. Five stations were used for out-of-sample evaluation of the model performance, independently confirming its capability of reproducing the spatiotemporal tritium variability in the region. The AP3H database is capable of providing reliable spatiotemporal input for hydrogeological application at any place within Slovenia, Hungary, and their surroundings. Results also show a decrease in the average spatial representativity of the stations regarding tritium activity in precipitation from ∼440 km in 1970s, when bomb tritium still prevailed in precipitation, to ∼235 km in the 2010s. The post-2010 isoscapes can serve as benchmarks for background tritium activity for the region, helping to determine potential future local increases in technogenic tritium from these backgrounds. The gridded tritium isoscape is available in NetCDF-4 at https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.896938 (Kern et al., 2019).

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Section: Possibility Of Applications (Outlook and Conclusion)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Isoscape of amount-weighted annual mean precipitation tritium (3H) activity from 1976 to 2017 for the Adriatic–Pannonian region – AP3H_v1 database

Kern

Erdélyi²,

Vreča

et al. 2020

Earth Syst. Sci. Data

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“…While part of OBT (<30%) is easily exchangeable with water molecules in the surrounding environment, most OBT is sequestered long term. Its persistence within OM mainly depends on biodegradation rates of involved organic compounds 1 . In soils and river systems, biodegradation processes affecting particulate OBT are expected to produce dissolved OBT and subsequently free mobile hydrogen that can rapidly oxidize towards tritiated water molecules.…”

Section: What We Currently Know On Environmental Behavior Of Tritium mentioning

confidence: 99%

Evidence for tritium persistence as organically bound forms in river sediments since the past nuclear weapon tests

Eyrolle

Copard

Lepage

et al. 2019

Sci Rep

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Tritium of artificial origin was initially introduced to the environment from the global atmospheric fallout after nuclear weapons tests. Its level was increased in rainwaters by a factor 1000 during peak emissions in 1963 within the whole northern hemisphere. Here we demonstrate that tritium from global atmospheric fallout stored in sedimentary reservoir for decades as organically bound forms in recalcitrant organic matter while tritium released by nuclear industries in rivers escape from such storages. Additionally, we highlight that organically bound tritium concentrations in riverine sediments culminate several years after peaking emission in the atmosphere due to the transit time of organic matter from soils to river systems. These results were acquired by measuring both free and bound forms of tritium in a 70 year old sedimentary archive cored in the Loire river basin (France). Such tritium storages, assumed to be formed at the global scale, as well as the decadal time lag of tritium contamination levels between atmosphere and river systems have never been demonstrated until now. Our results bring new lights on tritium persistence and dynamics within the environment and demonstrate that sedimentary reservoir constitute both tritium sinks and potential delayed sources of mobile and bioavailable tritium for freshwaters and living organisms decades after atmospheric contamination.

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“…Tritium (3H) and carbon-14 (14C) are produced naturally in the atmosphere by the effect of cosmic radiation principally on nitrogen. Tritium enters into the water cycle in the form of a molecule of tritiated water (HTO), then spreads into the biosphere as Tissus Free Water Tritium (TFWT) and organically bound tritium (OBT) - Eyrolle et al, (2018). The natural T/H ratio for surface waters is in the range 10-18 -10-17, i.e.…”

Section: Natural Sourcesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Organically bound tritium (OBT) and carbon-14 accumulation in the sediments off the mouth of the Rhône river

et al. 2019

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We have studied the recent history of Organically Bound Tritium (OBT) and carbon-14 in suspended organic matter carried by the Rhône from the analysis of two cores collected in the sedimentary cone off the river mouth. Measured OBT and carbon-14 concentrations highlight characteristic anthropogenic traces in the suspended matter of the Rhône, with a peak of tritium and carbon-14 commencing at the start of the 1970's and extending over some thirty years. In spite of the influence of the atmospheric nuclear tests of the 1950's and 1960's and of the discharges of carbon-14 by the nuclear industries located along the Rhône, carbon-14 levels are low due to the diluting effect of a refractory carbon component very low in carbon-14 présent in the coastal sediments. Organically bound tritium (OBT) levels are well above the modern background created by the global imprint of bomb-tritium. Detailed study of the impact of the various contribution to the tritium peak indicates that these traces are mostly the result of the sediments in the Rhône being contaminated by past tritium releases by the watchmaking industry in the upper Rhône.

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An updated review on tritium in the environment

Cited by 103 publications

References 90 publications

Isoscape of amount-weighted annual mean precipitation tritium (<sup>3</sup>H) activity from 1976 to 2017 for the Adriatic–Pannonian region – AP<sup>3</sup>H_v1 database

Isoscape of amount-weighted annual mean precipitation tritium (<sup>3</sup>H) activity from 1976 to 2017 for the Adriatic–Pannonian region – AP<sup>3</sup>H_v1 database

Evidence for tritium persistence as organically bound forms in river sediments since the past nuclear weapon tests

Organically bound tritium (OBT) and carbon-14 accumulation in the sediments off the mouth of the Rhône river

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An updated review on tritium in the environment

Cited by 103 publications

References 90 publications

Isoscape of amount-weighted annual mean precipitation tritium (&lt;sup&gt;3&lt;/sup&gt;H) activity from 1976 to 2017 for the Adriatic–Pannonian region – AP&lt;sup&gt;3&lt;/sup&gt;H_v1 database

Isoscape of amount-weighted annual mean precipitation tritium (&lt;sup&gt;3&lt;/sup&gt;H) activity from 1976 to 2017 for the Adriatic–Pannonian region – AP&lt;sup&gt;3&lt;/sup&gt;H_v1 database

Evidence for tritium persistence as organically bound forms in river sediments since the past nuclear weapon tests

Organically bound tritium (OBT) and carbon-14 accumulation in the sediments off the mouth of the Rhône river

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Product

Resources

About

Isoscape of amount-weighted annual mean precipitation tritium (<sup>3</sup>H) activity from 1976 to 2017 for the Adriatic–Pannonian region – AP<sup>3</sup>H_v1 database

Isoscape of amount-weighted annual mean precipitation tritium (<sup>3</sup>H) activity from 1976 to 2017 for the Adriatic–Pannonian region – AP<sup>3</sup>H_v1 database