EGU22-4387
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-4387
EGU General Assembly 2022
© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

A model on changes in 210Pbex depth distribution for abandoned farmland

Yong Yuan1,2, Xiong Donghong3, Zhang Yunqi4, Zhang Baojun3, and Zhang Xinbao3
Yong Yuan et al.
  • 1Institute of Mountain Hazards and Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chengdu, China (kmyuanyong@163.com)
  • 2Faculty of Modern Agricultural Engineering, Kunming University of Science and Technology, Kunming, China (kmyuanyong@163.com)
  • 3Institute of Mountain Hazards and Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chengdu, China (dhxiong@imde.ac.cn)
  • 4College of Forestry, Sichuan Agriculture University, Chengdu, China (zhangyunqi@sicau.edu.cn)

        Fallout radionuclides such as 137Cs and 210Pbex have been successfully used to quantify rates of soil and sediment redistribution in many areas of the world in recent years. However, little attention has been given to the assessment of soil erosion rate in the abandoned farmland using the 137Cs and 210Pbex tracer techniques. The artificial derived 137Cs is still basically uniformly distributed in the soil after farmland abandonment, while the depth distribution of the natural derived 210Pbex in the soil of the abandoned farmland will be continuously changed by the combined effects of its continuous atmospheric deposition, infiltration and radioactive decay within 100 years after farmland abandonment. At present, there is no model to represent this change of 210Pbex distribution after the farmland abandonment, and the existing steady-state 210Pbex model is not suitable for soil erosion assessment in the abandoned farmland. It is necessary to develop a model on the changes of 210Pbex depth distribution in the soil of abandoned farmland. In this study, the redistribution process of 210Pbex in the soil after farmland abandonment was decomposed and theoretically deduced on basis of analyzing the physical mechanisms of 210Pbex infiltration and decay in soil. The expression of 210Pbex decay in the plough layer on the initial abandoned farmland and the expression of infiltration of the new fallout 210Pbex in soil after farmland abandonment were incorporated to develop the model on changes in 210Pbex depth distribution for the abandoned farmland. The parameters such as the plow depth and the diffusion coefficient required for the model were obtained according to the measured 137Cs and 210Pbex depth distributions from the typical abandoned farmlands in Sichuan Province, southwest China. The result showed that the modeled curves of 210Pbex depth distribution in the farmland abandoned for 19, 15 and 8 years matched each other with the measured curves. In addition, the Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency coefficient (ENS) test showed that the ENS of the three abandoned farmland were 0.975, 0.961 and 0.889, respectively, indicating the modeled results are reliable. The present study has an important theoretical significance for the development of the models for calculating the soil erosion amount from 210Pbex measurements on the abandoned farmland, and further provides an effective method for the evaluation of the soil erosion response driven by abandonment.

How to cite: Yuan, Y., Donghong, X., Yunqi, Z., Baojun, Z., and Xinbao, Z.: A model on changes in 210Pbex depth distribution for abandoned farmland, EGU General Assembly 2022, Vienna, Austria, 23–27 May 2022, EGU22-4387, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-4387, 2022.