Investigation of the distribution of 137Cs from fallout in the soils of the city of Lund and the province of Skåne in Sweden

The vertical and horizontal behaviour of the distribution of 137Cs in soil taken from Skåne and Lund was determined using gamma spectroscopy on several bore cores. Samples were taken from 16 places in the province of Skåne and 16 sites in the town of Lund in the southern part of Sweden. The bore cores were sampled in a triangular pattern and sliced in 2–3-cm layers. The depth distribution of total 137Cs activity, from nuclear weapons fallout and the deposition after the Chernobyl accident, was found by fitting the experimental points to a modified exponential function, and the relaxation lengths found were in accordance with previous measurements at other sites in Sweden with a higher deposition of Chernobyl caesium. The horizontal variation was found to be about 20% for the Lund samples and about 40% in the Skåne samples, which is in accordance with results found for similar investigations on sites with smaller horizontal scales.