Probabilistic distribution coefficients (Kds) in freshwater for radioisotopes of Ag, Am, Ba, Be, Ce, Co, Cs, I, Mn, Pu, Ra, Ru, Sb, Sr and Th – implications for uncertainty analysis of models simulating the transport of radionuclides in rivers

Abstract The objective of this study was to provide operational probability density functions (PDFs) for distribution coefficients ( K d s) in freshwater, representing the partition of radionuclides between the particulate and the dissolved phases respectively. Accordingly, the K d variability should be considered in uncertainty analysis of transport and risk assessment models. The construction of PDFs for 8 elements (Ag, Am, Co, Cs, I, Mn, Pu and Sr) was established according to the procedure already tested in Durrieu et al. [2006. A weighted bootstrap method for the determination of probability density functions of freshwater distribution coefficients ( K d s) of Co, Cs, Sr and I radioisotopes. Chemosphere 65 (8), 1308–1320]: (i) construction of a comprehensive database where K d s values obtained under various environments and parametric conditions were collected; (ii) scoring procedure to account for the ‘quality’ of each datapoint (according to several criteria such as the presentation of data (e.g. raw data vs mean with or without replicates), contact time, pH, solid-to-liquid ratio, expert judgement) in the construction of the PDF; (iii) weighted bootstrapping procedure to build the PDFs, in order to give more importance to the most relevant datapoints. Two types of PDFs were constructed: (i) non-conditional, usable when no knowledge about the site of concern is available; (ii) conditional PDFs corresponding to a limited range of parameters such as pH or contact time; conditional PDFs can thus be used when some parametric information is known on the site under study. For 7 other radionuclides (Ba, Be, Ce, Ra, Ru, Sb and Th), a simplified procedure was adopted because of the scarcity of data: only non-conditional PDFs were built, without incorporating a scoring procedure.