title: Spatial trends on an ungrazed West Cumbrian saltmarsh of surface contamination by selected radionuclides over a 25 year period.
abstract: Long term spatial and temporal variations in radionuclide activity have been measured in a contaminated ungrazed saltmarsh near Ravenglass, Cumbria. Over a twenty-five year period there has been a decrease in activity concentration with (106)Ru and (137)Cs showing the highest rate of change followed by Pu alpha and (241)Am. A number of factors contribute to the reduction with time; including radiological half lives, discharge and remobilisation. For (241)Am the lower reduction rate is partially due to ingrowth from (241)Pu and partially as a result of transport of sediment from the offshore Irish Sea mud patch. Considerable spatial variation for the different radionuclides was observed, which with time became less defined. The highest activity concentrations of long-lived radionuclides were in low energy areas, typically where higher rates of sedimentation and vegetation occurred. The trend was reversed for the shorter lived radionuclide, (106)Ru, with higher activity concentrations observed in high energy areas where there was frequent tidal inundation. Surface scrape samples provide a pragmatic, practical method of measuring sediment contamination over large areas and is a sampling approach adopted by most routine environmental monitoring programs, but it does not allow for interpretation of the effect of variation in sedimentation rates. This paper proposes a method for calculating indicative sedimentation rates across the saltmarsh using surface scrape data, which produces results consistent with values experimentally obtained.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Ecology & Hydrology - Lancaster, Lancaster Environment Centre, Library Avenue, Bailrigg, Lancaster, LA1 4AP, UK; NNL, Preston Laboratory, A709, Springfields, Salwick, Preston, PR4 0XJ, UK. Electronic address: jane.a.caborn@nnl.co.uk.
authors.forename: Jane A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Caborn
authors.affiliation: Centre for Ecology & Hydrology - Lancaster, Lancaster Environment Centre, Library Avenue, Bailrigg, Lancaster, LA1 4AP, UK.
authors.forename: Brenda J
authors.initials: BJ
authors.lastname: Howard
authors.affiliation: Cefas Lowestoft Laboratory, Pakefield Road, Lowestoft, Suffolk, NR33 0HT, UK.
authors.forename: Paul
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Blowers
authors.affiliation: Centre for Ecology & Hydrology - Lancaster, Lancaster Environment Centre, Library Avenue, Bailrigg, Lancaster, LA1 4AP, UK.
authors.forename: Simon M
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Wright
mesh_terms: D004739:England; D019015:Geologic Sediments / Q000032:analysis*; D011834:Radiation Monitoring; D012621:Seasons; D014875:Water Pollutants, Radioactive / Q000032:analysis*; D053833:Wetlands
chemical_list: D014875:Water Pollutants, Radioactive
keywords: Monitoring; Radionuclides; Saltmarsh; Sedimentation; Spatial variation; Temporal variation