Abstract
ABSTRACT Yamakiya District in the town of Kawamata, Fukushima Prefecture, was evacuated after the nuclear accident at the Tokyo Electric Power Company’s Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in 2011. Since then, nuclear decontamination procedures have been applied to the surrounding environment, including agricultural fields. The decontamination procedure for agricultural fields consists of the removal of radiation-contaminated surface soil, followed by soil dressing and plowing. However, radioactive cesium (RCs) remains in the soil even after decontamination. In this study, we investigated the effect of applying nitrogen, potassium fertilizers, and cattle manure compost on buckwheat growth and the concentration of RCs in the grain of buckwheat cultivated in a decontaminated field from 2014 to 2016. Applications of potassium fertilizer and cattle manure compost increased the soil exchangeable potassium content and decreased the RCs concentration in the grain of buckwheat cultivated in the decontaminated field. Before the cultivation of the first buckwheat crop, the RCs concentration in soil varied widely and there were ‘hot spots’ with high RCs concentrations because of insufficient mixing of the original and the dressed soils. Therefore, soil had to be adequately mixed to avoid producing grain with a high RCs concentration. Buckwheat grew better when supplied with more nitrogen fertilizer than the conventional amount at the first cultivation, indicating that the dressed soil had low fertility. We also monitored buckwheat cultivation by local farmers in decontaminated fields from 2015 to 2017. By using potassium fertilizer, the farmers produced buckwheat grain with low RCs concentrations from 2015 to 2017.
Highlights
An accident at the Tokyo Electric Power Company’s (TEPCO) Fukushima Dai-ichi (No 1) nuclear power plant (FDNPP) triggered by the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami on 11 March 2011 resulted in the emission of radioactive materials, including radioactive cesium (134Cs + 137Cs, RCs), into the environment of eastern Japan (Fukushima Prefecture, 2015)
We investigated the soil RCs concentration and the effect of soil ExK content on grain RCs concentrations in buckwheat grown in physically decontaminated fields in Yamakiya District
This study revealed the status of fields physically decontaminated of RCs and the cautions for resuming agriculture in such fields
Summary
An accident at the Tokyo Electric Power Company’s (TEPCO) Fukushima Dai-ichi (No 1) nuclear power plant (FDNPP) triggered by the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami on 11 March 2011 resulted in the emission of radioactive materials, including radioactive cesium (134Cs + 137Cs, RCs), into the environment of eastern Japan (Fukushima Prefecture, 2015). Evacuation zones were established in this area to reduce radiation exposure to the residents. Such zones occupied 371 km in Fukushima in December 2017 (Fukushima Prefecture, 2017a), the total area of evacuation zones has since reduced because of the decontamination of radioactive materials in the environment and natural attenuation of radiation. Due to the decrease in the RCs concentrations as a result of physical decontamination of residential land, buildings, roads, forests, and farmland, as well as by natural attenuation, the evacuation order for Yamakiya was lifted in March 2017 (Nuclear Emergency Response Headquarters, 2016)
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