The ecological half-life of ¹³⁷Cs in undisturbed silt soil.
The time necessary to safely cultivate agricultural areas after they have been contaminated by radioactivity (e.g. after the Chernobyl accident) is not determined by the physical half-life of the radioactive isotopes in question but by their (usually much shorter) ecological half-life (Brisbin et al., 2002). This half-life not only depends on the type of soil but also on whether the soil was fertilized or not. Therefore it is not possible to determine an ecological half-life that is universally valid. However, the value for undisturbed, unfertilized soil should provide a general indication for the duration of ecological half-life. In a silt soil in Vienna, Austria, the ecological half-life of (137)Cs was determined to be 0.8 years, which is much shorter than the physical half-life of 30 years.
Faculty of Physics, University of Vienna, A-1090 Wien, Austria. manfred.drosg@univie.ac.at
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D002588:Cesium Radioisotopes / Q000493:pharmacokinetics*; D006207:Half-Life; D012990:Soil Pollutants, Radioactive / Q000493:pharmacokinetics*
D002588:Cesium Radioisotopes; D012990:Soil Pollutants, Radioactive