Caesium-137 is one of the major artificial radioactive elements, whose sources are atmospheric nuclear tests carried out in the 20th century and nuclear power plant incidents such as Chernobyl. Because of uneven precipitation, there were significant differences in radioactive fallout levels in different areas of the Czech Republic during the passage of the radioactive cloud from Chernobyl. Due to the high solubility of Caesium-137 in water and easy distribution in the environment, there is contamination of the lower soil levels where the plant root systems are located. The aim of this work is to collect soil samples from selected localities, where in 1986 significant contamination was detected as originating from Chernobyl, determination of their Caesium-137 content by gamma semiconductor spectrometry and comparison depending on the type of soil. The research question was set as: Does Caesium-137 content differ in different soil types? As part of this study, samples of uncultivated agricultural land and forest land were collected from layers 0-5, 5-10 and 10-15 cm in Kvilda, Zadov and Churanov. For comparison, results were also collected from a locality where the radioactive fallout was not so significant. This locality is around the village Straz nad Nezarkou, which is found on the protected nature reserves of Trebon. From the results of measuring the soil it was found that even after thirty years since the Chernobyl disaster occurred, Caesium-137 is still found in the upper layers of soils, specifically to depths of 5 cm. The highest specific activity of Caesium-137 was measured in the forest soils in Zadov at depths of 0-5 cm (364 Bq.kg-1) from the total range of all samples, 2,24 Bq.kg-1 to 364 Bq.kg-1. The highest specific activity of potassium K-40 was measured in uncultivated agricultural land in the locality of Kvilda at depths of 0-5 cm (883 Bq.kg-1).
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:nusl.cz/oai:invenio.nusl.cz:320659 |
| Date | January 2017 |
| Creators | ČADOVÁ, Michaela |
| Source Sets | Czech ETDs |
| Language | Czech |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | info:eu-repo/semantics/masterThesis |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/restrictedAccess |
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