Radioactive Cesium Technology To Measure Soil Erosion

• Researchers at the ICAR-Indian Institute of Soil and Water Conservation, Dehradun have come up with a way to monitor soil erosion and decrease in carbon content in soil by correlating it with levels of radioactive cesium in soil.
• Radioactive cesium technology is a more rapid and less expensive method for soil erosion studies in the severely intensive croplands. It gives more accurate results for all types of erosion studies including historic, comparative and long-term soil and soil organic carbon erosion.
• For measuring cesium levels in soil, gamma spectroscopy technique is used. Different sites were found to have varying levels of cesium pointing at different degrees of soil degradation in different sites. By applying various formulas, the cesium loss was then used to calculate erosion and associated carbon loss in soil.
• This method can help in monitoring the effects of soil erosion and effectiveness of soil conservation strategies.

Source : Civil Services Chronicle Online, October, 2019