Abstract
Development of a self-sustainable remediation process seems to require an approach that uses the entire ecosystem functions. Selected effects have been documented in four case studies both in forests and wetlands: I) In the course of vegetation and soil development on experimental plots forested since 1963, concentration of RNs was reduced from >1000 Bq/kg to <200 Bq/kg in the top soil due to dilution by accumulation of organic carbon; II) in the stem wood of spruce and alder as few as 13–54 mg U/ha had been fixed; III) wetland compartments acted as strong sinks (> 1000 Bq/kg in organic matter); IV) water quality below a natural wetland — working as a filter within an uranium mineralisation hot spot in Malawi (SE-Africa) (> 2000 Bq/kg soil) — demonstrated no difference to a reference brook within the catchment.
