137Cs and 90Sr transfer to milk in Austrian alpine agriculture

The alpine regions of Austria were among the most contaminated territories outside of the former USSR after the Chernobyl accident. In the investigated province of Salzburg the median Cs-137 surface deposition was 31.4 kBq m(-2) with maximum values exceeding 90 kBq m(-2) (May 1986). To quantify the transfer of Cs-137 and Sr-90 from vegetation to milk in these seminatural conditions nine seasonally grazed alps were identified and vegetation and milk sampled during summer 2002 and summer 2003. Mean +/- SD milk transfer coefficients (fm) for 137Cs and 90Sr were 0.0071 +/- 0.0009 d l(-1), and 0.0011 +/- 0.0004 d l(-1), respectively; which for Cs-137 is markedly higher than those fm values found in intensive agricultural systems.