Using WOFOST crop model for data base derivation of tritium and terrestrial food chain modules in RODOS

¹ National Institute for Physics and Nuclear Engineering, P.O. Box MG-6, 76900 Bucharest-Magurele, Romania
² National Institute for Meteorology and Hydrology, Bucharest, Romania

Abstract

The European Commission Project RODOS is developing a coherent methodology for a Real-time On-line DecisiOn Support System for Nuclear Emergency across Europe. Within this system there is a special module to model the transfer of triated water from releases to terrestrial foods. In order to model the transfer of tritiated water from air to various plants, the conversion to organically bound tritium, and the partition to edible parts of the plant, both the mean dynamics of leaf area index and a physiological description of canopy photosynthesis are required. The WOFOST crop growth model has been selected as a basis for deriving tritium transfer dynamics to plants. Its ability to reproduce site-specific biomass growth of various plants (not only from Europe) is demonstrated in this paper, as well as its compatibility to other photosynthesis models. We have tested that this model can simulate limited fertilisation situations via the adaptation of two important parameters. After adaptation of model parameters to site-specific plant growth data, multi-annual mean dynamics can be obtained using meteorological data for subsequent years.