Special issues of Journals

Virtual Issue: Radionuclide contamination by the accident of Fukushima daiichi Nuclear Power Plant of TEPCO

Grassland Science, 2015. Japanese Society of Grassland Science: ISSN: 1744-697X

Edited By: Toshihiko Yamada

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Summary
The accident of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant of TEPCO on 11 March 2011 caused extensive contamination of crops and livestock by radioactive cesium. The effects of radioactive cesium in the contaminated area still remains. Since the accident various studies have been conducted on the radioactive contamination of Japanese agriculture. In 2012 the Japanese Society of Grassland Science held a symposium entitled “Current status and future challenges of radionuclide contamination for forage crops and grasslands”, as a response to the fact that accumulation of reliable scientific data is essential to developing effective countermeasures and remediation for radionuclide contamination. We present here a collection of papers published in recent issues of Grassland Science that examine the impact of radioactive cesium released by the accident of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.

SPECIAL ISSUE: Environmental Radioactivity: Legacy Sites, Chernobyl and Fukushima; selected papers from the 12th International Conference on the Biogeochemistry of Trace Elements (ICOBTE)

Journal of Environmental Radioactivity
Volume 131, Pages 1-128 (May 2014)

Edited by Thomas Hinton, Francois Brechignac, Brenda Howard, Astrid Liland, Stuart Walker and Tamara Yankovich

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Summary
This issue of the Journal of Environmental Radioactivity is a compilation of twelve manuscripts from a special session, Environmental Radioactivity: Legacy Sites, Chernobyl and Fukushima, held during the 12th ICOBTE Congress in Athens, Georgia, USA (16-20 June 2013). The special session on environmental radioactivity occupied two full days and consisted of 30 oral presentations, seven posters and an invited plenary speaker.

SPECIAL ISSUE: Environmental Impacts of the Fukushima Accident (Part I)

Journal of Environmental Radioactivity
Volume 111, Pages 1-126 (September 2012)

Edited by Shun'ichi Hisamatsu

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Summary
The Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami impacted the Pacific Ocean side of Japan on March 11, 2011, causing death and injury and heavily damaging infrastructure. The Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, belonging to the Tokyo Electric Power Company, and consisting of six BWR units, endured the earthquake itself, however the tsunami following the earthquake destroyed the power supply to the reactors. Although the power supply was recovered for two units, all attempts of supplying enough emergency power to four units, Units 1–4, failed. The nuclear fuels overheated because the cooling function failed along with the total power failure. These units were damaged by melting. Hydrogen, which was generated by reaction of the nuclear fuel tubes with water steam, exploded inside of the reactor buildings, and the explosion blew off their upper structures. A large amount of radionuclides was released to the atmosphere mainly at the explosions, and people around the plant were evacuated to avoid excess radiation dose. When the cooling function of nuclear fuels was not recovered, a large volume of fresh water as well as seawater were supplied to the reactor buildings for cooling. Part of the water which had high concentrations of radionuclides was leaked to the Pacific Ocean. Although a large volume of monitoring data around the damaged plant has been disclosed, technical reports are not enough to know the whole picture of the effect of the accident on the environmental radioactivity. To fill the gap, we are planning two special issues about the environmental radioactivity related to the accident. The first one, this issue, is composed of papers from the Asia-Pacific region, mostly from Japan, the second one consists of papers from Europe. We hope that the special issues help complete the information about the radiological impact of the accident.

Special Issue: Environmental Impacts of the Fukushima Accident (PART II)

Journal of Environmental Radioactivity
Volume 114, Pages 1-170 (December 2012)

Edited by Pavel P. Povinec

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Summary
This Special Issue of the Journal of Environmental Radioactivity, consisting of 25 papers, summarizes the results obtained in over 30 European and US laboratories, studying the impact of the Fukushima accident on the total environment. A wide range of topics have been covered: radionuclide source terms in the environment (Bailly du Bois et al.; Schöppner et al.) and in damaged nuclear reactors (Kirchner et al.), atmospheric modeling (Bossew et al.; Lujaniené et al.), radionuclide observations in USA (Biegalski et al.), in the Arctic (Paatero et al.), and in Europe (Beresford et al.; Evrard et al.; Perrot et al.; Loaiza et al.; Lujaniené et al.; Povinec et al.; Bikit et al.; Cosma et al.; Kritidis et al.; Previti et al.; Clemenza et al.; Ioannidou et al.; Delfanti et al.; Pham et al.; Baeza et al.; Garcia et al.; Carvalho et al.), and radiation exposure to marine biota (Kryshev et al.), and to Japanese population (N.D. Priest). Although the radionuclide release rates were only by about a factor of ten lower when compared with the Chernobyl accident, the environmental impact of the Fukushima accident outside of Japan has been hardly measurable. The papers of Japanese colleagues on the environmental impact of the Fukushima accident have been published in a separate Special Issue of the Journal of Environmental Radioactivity.

Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management
Volume 7, Pages 313–511 (July 2011)

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