Determination of soil-to-plant transfer factors of 137Cs and 90Sr in the tropical environment of Bangladesh

Soil-to-plant transfer factors (TF) of ¹³⁷Cs and ⁹⁰Sr have been determined for different plants/crops, such as rice, beans, peanuts, pineapple, cabbage, tomato, spinach and grass. They were obtained from radioisotope experiments on plants grown in pots under outdoor ambient tropical conditions for three growing seasons (1994–1996). In the case of ¹³⁷Cs and concerning the above mentioned plants/crops, the average TFs were found to be 0.28, 0.25, 0.77, 0.19, 0.23, 0.28, 0.59 and 0.18, respectively. In the case of ⁹⁰Sr, the average TFs were found to be 0.82, 0.51, 0.20, 0.82, 0.69, 0.59, 0.91 and 0.84, respectively. A minor seasonal variation was observed. This study provides a database of TFs for tropical environments to be used, e.g., for radiological safety assessment models. Received: 14 October 1997 / Accepted in revised form: 9 February 1998