Second International Workshop on Radiological Sciences

 

Tittle: Application of radioactive fallout Cesium-137 to estimate soil erosion rate in the Caribean area, in Cuba.

 

Authors: Rita Y. Sibello Hern·ndez; HÈctor Cartas; Jorge MartÌn.

 

Environmental Studies Center of Cienfuegos, Cuba.

Carretera Castillo del Jagua km 1 ‡.

Ciudad Nuclear, Cienfuegos, Cuba.

 

E-mail: rita@ceac.perla.inf.cu

 

Abstract

 

The soil is one of the most important natural resources with which the man counts. However, the human intervention through deforestation, overgrazing, and non-sustainable farming practices, can accelerate the soil erosion, causing serious environmental damages such as the losses of enormous quantities of fertile lands and the contamination of the sources of water by deposition of the sediments.

Nowadays there is an increasing need to obtain reliable quantitative data on the extent and rates of soil erosion to know the magnitude of the problem and take the effective soil conservation measures for the sustainable development of the agricultural production and environmental protection.

In this sense the use of Cesium-137 as environmental radiotracer of the physical movements of the soil has found a valuable application for the quantification of the soil lost.

In this work are showed the obtained results in the application of the Cesium-137 in the tropical soils erosion quantification, in the Caribean area, in Cuba.