Abstract: Anthropogenic radionuclide ¹³⁷Cs released from atmospheric nuclear tests, major nuclear reactor accidents, and other sources can be detected in the environment in most parts of the world. In this paper, we investigated the ¹³⁷Cs atmospheric deposition in the Liaodong Bay based on the records of ¹³⁷Cs atmospheric deposition and precipitation in Tokyo and Akita in Japan. Additionally, a practical method for soil erosion rate was studied by using ¹³⁷Cs atmospheric deposition and developing a model. The results indicated that the cumulative atmospheric deposition inventory of ¹³⁷Cs was estimated to be 1614 Bq·m^-2 (decay corrected to 2009) from 1957 to 2008 in the Liaodong Bay. The value of ¹³⁷Cs atmospheric deposition can be seen as the reference inventory to estimate for the soil erosion rate. The average soil erosion rate ranged from 17.39-38.92 t·hm^-2·a^-1 computed by the ¹³⁷Cs atmospheric deposition. However, the average soil erosion rate ranged from 11.97-44.94 t·hm-2·a-1 using the local reference inventory. This is mainly because we had considered the ¹³⁷Cs atmospheric dry deposition since 1964 and the ¹³⁷Cs cumulative atmospheric deposition after 1990, thus, leading to the average result higher than that of Yang et al. (2000). Additionally, the variation coefficient (30.5%) was lower than that (49%) by Yang et al. (2000). This indicated that the dispersion of using the method in present study was also lower than in previous studies. Statistical analysis of the erosion rate derived from the two methods does not show significant difference, which demonstrated that the ¹³⁷Cs atmospheric deposition is a feasible way to estimate the soil erosion rate.

Key words: net global warming potential, greenhouse gas intensity, plastic film mulching.