A new approach to analysis of relationships between 137Cs activity concentrations in forest soil horizons

TL;DR

The paper explores how 137Cs activity concentrations vary in different forest soil layers and identifies two distinct groups based on their distribution patterns.

Contribution

The study introduces a new method for analyzing 137Cs activity in soil layers using compositional data analysis.

Findings

137Cs activity in surface soil layers shows proportional relationships and thermodynamic equilibrium.

Deeper soil layers lack thermodynamic equilibrium and show slower changes in 137Cs activity.

Abstract

The measurements results of 137Cs activity concentrations in forest soil profiles are discussed. In studies some simplifications were considered. First of them concerns disregarding of soil subtype in data analysis. However initially this parameter was considered in data analysis, it was finally ignored. The second assumption drops information about specific soil horizon. Description of 137Cs accumulation is based on relationships between its relative activity concentrations in soil layers. The model formulation was based on the results of exploratory data analysis of the relative 137Cs activity concentrations. In studies the methods designed for compositional data analysis were used. The results of analysis showed that the relationships between the relative activity concentrations of 137Cs in soil layers, due to their nature, might be divided into two groups. The first of them concerns layers located close to soil surface. The relative activity concentrations of 137Cs in these layers are proportional to each other, and distribution mechanism of cesium within them has the characteristics of the process leading to thermodynamic equilibrium. The second group is related to layers that are located deeper. The calculation results suggest lack of thermodynamic equilibrium between these layers and layers situated above. Utilization of a linear model for description of changes in relative activity concentrations of 137Cs in deeper layers supposes that these changes occur much slower than in layers lying above.

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