Radiation exposure to Marine biota around the Fukushima Daiichi NPP

Abstract

The dose rates for six marine organisms, pelagic fish, benthic fish, mollusks, crustaceans, macroalgae, and polychaete worms, representative in marine ecosystems, have been predicted by the equilibrium model with the measured seawater activity concentrations at three locations around the Fukushima Daiich nuclear power plant after the accident on March 11, 2011. Model prediction showed that total dose rates for the biota in the costal sea reached 4.8E4 μGy/d for pelagic fish, 3.6E6 μGy/d for crustaceans, 3.8E6 μGy/d for benthic fish, 5.2E6 μGy/d for macroalgae, 6.6E6 μGy/d for mollusks, and 8.0E6 μGy/d for polychaete worms. The predicted total dose rates remained above the UNSCEAR's (United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effect of Atomic Radiation) benchmark level (1.0E4 μGy/d for an individual aquatic organism), for only the initial short period, which seems to be insufficiently long to bring about any detrimental effect on the marine biota at the population level. Furthermore, the total dose rates for benthic fish and crustaceans approximated using the measured activity concentration of the biota and bottom sediment was well below the benchmark level. From these results, it may be concluded that the impact of the ionizing radiation on the marine biota around the Fukushima NPP as a consequence of the accident would be insignificant.

A dynamic model to estimate the activity concentration and whole body dose rate of marine biota as consequences of a nuclear accident

“…The weighted dose conversion coefficients, with weighting factors of radiation, 10 for alpha, 3 for low beta, and 1 for high beta and gamma, were calculated using the uniform isotopic model (Ulanovsky and Proehl, 2006). Details on the method and values of the dose conversion coefficients are also given elsewhere (Keum et al, 2010(Keum et al, , 2014.…”

“…Radioactivity was significantly released into the environment, and a large marine ecosystem in the Pacific Ocean along the eastern coast of Japan was contaminated by the radioactivity. After the accident, the radiation effect on the marine biota as the result of the accident was investigated in a few studies (Garnier-Laplace et al, 2011;Kryshev et al, 2012;Keum et al, 2013Keum et al, , 2014. The initial studies were mostly based on an equilibrium approach, and there have been relatively few dynamic approaches.…”

Assessing the Atmospheric Oxygen Balance in a Region of Rapid Urbanization: A Case Study in the Pearl River Delta, China

“…Plants consume part of the organic carbon produced by photosynthesis and absorb some oxygen through respiration. The remaining organic carbon is referred to as NPP [45][46][47]. The third is heterotrophic respiration of soil organic matter.…”

The Causal Relationship between DNA Damage Induction in Bovine Lymphocytes and the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant Accident

“…Several studies have documented the impact of the FNPP accident in the evacuation zone by measuring the accumulation of radionuclides in soil samples (2–4), animals (5), the marine biota (6–8), freshwater fishes (9), plants (10–12) and microorganisms (13). The specific activity of radiocesium in abandoned cattle is dependent on the type of organ examined (5).…”