Numerical modelling of 137Cs content in the pelagic species of the Japanese Pacific coast following the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant accident using a size-structured food-web model.

Abstract

As result of the great east Japan earthquake on March 2011 and the damages of the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant (FDNPP), huge amount of radionuclides, especially 137Cs, were released to the Japanese Pacific coast. By consequence, several marine species have been contaminated by direct uptake of radionuclides from seawater or through feeding on contaminated preys. In the present study we propose a novel radioecological modelling approach aiming to simulate the radionuclides transfer to pelagic marine species by giving to the organism body-size a key role in the model. We applied the model to estimate the 137Cs content in 14 commercially important species of the North-Western Pacific Ocean after the FDNPP accident. Firstly, we validated the model and evaluated its performance using various observed field data, and we demonstrated the importance of using such modelling approach in radioecological studies. Afterwards, we estimated some radioecological metrics, such as the maximum activity concentration, its corresponding time and the ecological half-life, which are important in assessment of the previous, current and future contamination levels of the studied species. Finally, we estimated the time duration required for each species to reach the pre-accident 137Cs activity concentrations. The results showed that the contamination levels in the planktivorous species have generally reached the pre-accident levels since about 5 years after the accident (since 2016). While in the case of the higher trophic level species, although the activity concentrations are much lower than the regulatory limit for radiocesium in seafood in Japan (100 Bq kg-1), these species still require another 6–14 years (2018–2026) to reach the pre-accident levels.