Temporal changes of mobile forms of 90Sr on Pripyat River floodplain in vicinity of Chornobyl NPP: measurements and risk assessments for river water contamination

Since the 1986 Chornobyl accident transport of radionuclides by Pripyat River shares more than 90% of the annual total flux of radioactivity coming out the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone (ChEZ).  90Sr was the main contributor to this flux. In course of time destruction of the accidentally dispersed "fuel particles" leads to increase of mobile, e.g. water-soluble, forms of 90Sr  on territories affected by, while fixation of 137Cs in soil is reflected by significant reduction in 137Cs aquatic transport outside the ChEZ.

Heavily contaminated floodplain of the Pripyat River, located in vicinity of ChNPP upstream of Yaniv Bridge up to Ukrainian - Belorussian border, was considered as a “hotspot” with highest risks to the Pripyat and Dnipro water contamination due to recurrent flooding of these territories. This was evidently elucidated after the 1991 ice jam event when drastic increase of 90Sr in water was observed. The dikes splitting leftbank floodplain from the Pripyat river channel were constructed in 1992-1993. Yet, it is still important to quantify the amount of 90Sr that can be washed off the floodplain due to potential dike breakage caused by the extreme floods. 

Key parameters used to describe status of radionuclide in reaching equilibrium in soil-water system are the distribution coefficient (Kd) and kinetic rate that is reciprocal of typical time scale of desorption processes. These parameters subsequently were estimated in 1991 on the basis of batch experiment carried out with the soil monoliths sampled from the Pripyat floodplain ( Laptev and Voistekhovich, 1991). Results were used in the 2D model COASTOX for justification the construction of protecting dikes (Zheleznyak at al., 1992).

To analyze current ability of 90Sr to be washed off the floodplain, soils monoliths were collected in 2020. The experimental studies of the soil cores collected from same location as the monoliths allowed to estimate mobile speciation of 90S and calibrate mass-exchange parameters. Amount of the readily exchangeable forms of 90Sr in soils significantly increased from 10-30% in the first years after the accident up to 65-75% as to 2020. Results of field and laboratory  studies were used for simulation the scenarios of 90Sr washing off the floodplain during the dikes breaks on the basis of contemporary version of COASTOX model, that includes the parallel algorithms for numerical solution of the model equations on the unstructured computational grids for multi CPU and GPU systems. Approaches for the modelling of the secondary release of 90Sr due the rapid destruction of “fuel particles” are considered. Taking into account two concurrent processes - decrease of amount of 90Sr in uppermost soil layer due to decay and downward vertical migration (1), amid increased amount of exchangeable forms of 90Sr (2), one could project subsequent increasing of 90Sr  in Pripyat and Dnipro river waters downstream the source in case of the dike breakage scenarios. On the other hand, computer simulation suggests that the maximal values of the 90Sr concentrations expected to be not higher than the measured ones during the high floods events after the accident.