Decontamination of radio Cs from forest soils using biodiversity and the functioning of soil organisms

Abstract

Most radioactive cesium contaminating forests finally accumulates in the surface layer of soil; at the same time it circulates in the forest ecosystem. Physical decontamination methods are not appropriate in order to remove radioactive cesium, released by the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant Accident, from the forest. We developed a decontamination method using fungal transfer of radio cesium from soil to wood chips laid on the forest floor. When we compared the efficiency of the decontamination between the newly developed method and the phytoremediation, it was found that the new method removed up to 7% of the radioactive cesium in the forest soil, thus it was the most efficient method to decontaminate the radioactive cesium from the forest soil. We propose a method to continue forest management under radioactive contamination while maintaining the wood energy utilization; cutting down the forest, and spreading wood chips to absorb radioactive cesium, then collecting the chips from the forest, to be used as wood fuel.