An efficient approach to model the long-term radiocesium contamination of mushrooms and berry plants

Since 1987, a coniferous forest in Bavaria has continuously been monitored for radiocesium. About 350 soil samples and about 450 samples of different species of mushrooms and berry plants were analyzed for Cs-134 and Cs-137. Based on this extensive data set a radioecological model for the long-term contamination of mushrooms and berry plants was developed. To keep the mode l as simple as possible without losing predictive power, it was especially designed to describe the vertical migration of radiocesium in forest soil, a key process which governs the temporal evolution of activity levels in mu shrooms and berry plants.