Modelling of radiocesium in lakes—Lake sensitivity and remedial strategies

A given fallout of radiocesium (e.g. after the Chernobyl accident) will be distributed and taken up by biota very differently in various types of lakes. Thus, lakes have different “sensitivities” to radiocesium. Important environmental factors regulating the biouptake of 137Cs are the lake water retention time and the K concentration of the water. Several practically useful and ecologically relevant methods exist to remediate lakes contaminated by radiocesium, e.g. liming, potash treatment and fertilization of low-productive lakes. The basic aim of this paper is to use a validated, state-of-the-art model for radiocesium in lakes, the VAMP model, first to illustrate the fact that different lakes have different ‘sensitivities’, and then to simulate the effects of alternative remedial methods. Target variables in these tests are Cs concentrations in lake water and in predatory fish. These results emanate from IAEAs VAMP project. The lakes included in this work cover a wide range of lake and catchment characteristics.