Preliminary study of the chronology of the sedimentation process in lakes

The soil erosion accelerated which produces the presence of sediment in rivers is one of the main environmental problems and represents a challenge for the sustainable use of soil and water resources. The problems associated with the increased sediments production are mainly related to the rivers siltation, reduced storage capacity of dams and reservoirs and reduction in the quality of aquatic environment. Thus, further information on sedimentation rates in lakes and reservoirs are required, as a parameter for estimating the chronology of production rates of sediment. Therefore, methods to establish the chronology of recent sediments are central base for such research. The cesium-137 is an artificial radionuclide with a half life of 30.2 years, inserted in the environment through the 'fallout' radioactive between the 1950's and 1970's, with two predominant peaks of deposition in 1959 and 1964. The basis for using the cesium-137 in this context (chronology of sediments) is that the cesium-137 is rapidly and strongly adsorbed to fine particles of soil and its distribution in the sediment profile directly reflects the chronology of sediment deposition. The purpose of this work is to use the cesium-137 profile in lake sediments to assess the history of deposition and to obtain information about the erosive process. For this, lake sediments of a mini-hydroelectric power plant built in the 1940's in the city of Londrina-PR were analyzed, showing that cesium-137 can be used as a source of data for chronological assessment of erosive processes occurring in the vicinity of the lake. (author)