Radioactive Cesium Decontamination and Strategic Farmland Resource Conservation

Abstract

Radiocesium (Cs) decontamination of land has been required as one of the restoration measures after the Tohoku-Pacific Ocean Earthquake disaster. The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) of Japan plans to carry out decontamination measures of farmland in response to the situation of land contamination. However, in order to achieve effective restoration, strategic and comprehensive measures including land readjustment are necessary. In this paper, we examined characteristics of Cs contamination from the view of the spatial extent contamination, land use, land improvement and working environment, and made the following proposals: (1) Implementation of Cs decontamination works ought to follow the principle of “containment”, “isolation”, and “securing long-term safety” of Cs, and improve both production environment and working environment of farmlands. (2) Strategic approaches should be carried out in a comprehensive and unified manner for the effective implementation of Cs decontamination.