title: Radioecological investigation of3H,14C, and129I in natural waters from Fuhrberger Feld catchment, Northern Germany.
abstract: Ongoing radionuclide releases from nuclear facilities, e.g. from reprocessing plants, but also from nuclear reactors require monitoring of the environment. Particularly drinking water reservoirs are prone to possible radionuclide accumulation fostering the need for routine surveillance. In this work, we investigated tritium (3H), radiocarbon (14C), and iodine-129 (129I) activity levels in natural aquatic samples at the water protection area of Fuhrberger Feld near Hannover city, Northern Germany. For that aim, a low-level liquid scintillation counting (LSC) technique was used to measure3H in the water samples based on a distillation process after alkaline permanganate treatment. Isotopic ratios for both14C and129I were measured by accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) after chemical separation and purification of the samples. Mean3H levels in precipitation (8.8 ± 3.4 TU) were found to be comparable to its levels in precipitation data in Germany. Rivers and small streams revealed similar mean3H value (11.0 ± 3.3 TU) as in lake water (10.6 ± 3.4 TU). Variations in3H concentrations in groundwater samples were observed and discussed.14C levels in all groundwater samples were below the atmospheric natural level of 100 pMC indicating no anthropogenic input of radiocarbon. The129I/127I isotopic ratios in all investigated water samples were in the order of 10-8to 10-7, which is significantly higher than the pre-nuclear natural equilibrium isotopic ratio (∼1.5 × 10-12). In strong contrast to all other regional groundwaters, the Fuhrberger Feld groundwater has much higher values of129I concentration and129I/127I isotopic ratio close to the ones of surface water. The overall annual effective dose via ingestion for all nuclides in the investigated groundwater remains substantially below the reference dose level of 0.1 mSv a-1.
authors: Institute for Radioecology and Radiation Protection (IRS), Leibniz Universität Hannover (LUH), 30419 Hannover, Germany. Electronic address: osman@irs.uni-hannover.de.
authors: Alfatih A A
authors: AAA
authors: Osman
authors: Institute for Radioecology and Radiation Protection (IRS), Leibniz Universität Hannover (LUH), 30419 Hannover, Germany.
authors: Stefan
authors: S
authors: Bister
authors: Institute for Radioecology and Radiation Protection (IRS), Leibniz Universität Hannover (LUH), 30419 Hannover, Germany.
authors: Beate
authors: B
authors: Riebe
authors: Institute for Radioecology and Radiation Protection (IRS), Leibniz Universität Hannover (LUH), 30419 Hannover, Germany.
authors: Abdelouahed
authors: A
authors: Daraoui
authors: Laboratory of Ion Beam Physics, ETH Zurich, 8093 Zurich, Switzerland.
authors: Christof
authors: C
authors: Vockenhuber
authors: Laboratory of Ion Beam Physics, ETH Zurich, 8093 Zurich, Switzerland.
authors: Lukas
authors: L
authors: Wacker
authors: Institute for Radioecology and Radiation Protection (IRS), Leibniz Universität Hannover (LUH), 30419 Hannover, Germany.
authors: Clemens
authors: C
authors: Walther
mesh_terms: D005618:Fresh Water / Q000737:chemistry*; D005858:Germany; D011834:Radiation Monitoring; D014875:Water Pollutants, Radioactive / Q000032:analysis*; D014878:Water Pollution, Radioactive / Q000706:statistics & numerical data
chemical_list: D014875:Water Pollutants, Radioactive
keywords: Fuhrberger Feld; Hannover; Iodine-129; Natural waters; Radiocarbon; Tritium