Deposition of heavy water on soil and reemission to the atmosphere

Field experiments using heavy water as a tracer instead of tritiated water (HTO) were carried out in November 1995 and August 1996 in Japan. The objective of these experiments was to estimate the behavior of HTO in the environment when HTO was released to the atmosphere. We measured the evolution of depth profiles of heavy water concentrations in soil water and compared the reemission rates with the evaporation velocities to study the deposition and reemission of heavy water to/from soil. The depth profiles of heavy water concentrations in soil were expressed by exponential functions of which the gradient depended on the deposition period. The initial reemission rates of heavy water from the soil were the highest, regardless of the meteorological conditions. The reemission occurred not only during the day but also at night, suggesting that the exchange of heavy water in the soil surface layer with H₂O in air played a dominant role during nighttime.