Natural radioactivity measurement and radiological hazard evaluation in surface soils in a gold mining area and surrounding regions in Bolikhamxay province, Laos

Leuangtakoun, Somsavath; Phan, Giang T.T.; Duong, Thang Duc; Le, Ngoc-Thiem; Khong, Nam Khang; Singsoupho, Sounthone; Tran, Hoai-Nam; Bui, Van Loat

doi:10.1007/s10967-020-07408-x

Cited by 17 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 29 publications

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“…For all the aforementioned reasons, the evaluation of human exposure to ionizing radiation has attracted growing attention from the scientific community, as can be seen by the increasing number of scientific papers related to the field [ 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 ]. In fact, there is an increasing awareness that radiation effects are induced by radioactive elements [ 16 , 17 , 18 ], whose distribution is not homogeneous over the Earth’s crust.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Natural Radioactivity in Raw Building Materials for Underground Parking Lots and Assessment of Radiological Health Risk for the Population

Caridi,

Paladini,

Mottese

et al. 2024

IJERPH

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This article reports the results of an investigation into the activity concentration of natural radionuclides in raw building materials for underground parking lots, together with the assessment of the radiation hazard for the public related to exposure to ionizing radiations. To this purpose, high-purity germanium (HPGe) γ-ray spectrometry was employed in order to quantify the average specific activity of 226Ra, 232Th, and 40K natural radioisotopes. With the aim to assess any possible radiological health risk for the population, the absorbed γ-dose rate (D), the annual effective dose equivalent outdoor (AEDEout) and indoor (AEDEin), the activity concentration index (I), and the alpha index (Iα) were also estimated, resulting in values that were lower than the maximum recommended ones for humans. Finally, the extent of the correlations existing between the observed radioactivity and radiological parameters and of these parameters with the analyzed samples was quantified through statistical analyses, including Pearson’s correlation, a principal component analysis (PCA), and a hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA). As a result, three clusters of the investigated samples were recognized based on their chemical composition and mineralogical nature. Noteworthily, this paper covers a certain gap in science since its topic does not appear in literature in this form. Thus, the authors underline the importance of this work to global knowledge in the environmental research and public health fields.

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