MODELING OF RADIOCESIUM IN LAKES - LAKE SENSITIVITY AND REMEDIAL STRATEGIES

A given fallout of radiocesium (e.g. after the Chernobyl accident) wil l be distributed and taken by biota very differently in various types of lakes. Thus, lakes have different ''sensitivities'' to radiocesium. Important environmental factors regulating the biouptake of Cs-137 ar e the lake water retention time and the K concentration of the water. Several practically useful an ecologically relevant methods exist to r emediate lakes contaminated by radiocesium, e.g. liming, potash treatm ent and fertilization of low-productive lakes. The basic aim of this p aper is to use a validated, state-of-the-art model for radiocesium in lakes, the VAMP model, first to illustrate the fact that different lak es have different 'sensitivities', and then to simulate the effects of alternative remedial methods. Target variables in these tests are Cs concentrations in lake water and in predatory fish. These results eman ate from IAEAs VAMP project. The lakes included in this work cover a w ide range of lake and catchment characteristics. Copyright (C) 1996 El sevier Science Limited