Estimation and evaluation of the radioactive contamination through a food web in an aquatic ecosystem (2). System analysis of the transfer of radionuclides through a food web.

Abstract

In order to estimate and evaluate the radioactivity concentration in an aquatic ecosystem, the transfer of radioactivity through a food web should be considered. In this paper, systems analysis on the above problem was performed and a quantity of radioactivity in organisms concentrated through their diet was presented. It was found from numerical evaluation that whether the transfer of radioactivity through a diet is significant or not depended on such ecological factors as ration rates, assimilation rates, uptake rates and turnover rates, etc. The degree of the importance of these parameters on the concentration process of radioactivity was quantitatively evaluated by the mathematical technique of sensitivity analysis.