Radon Concentration Level in Ground and Drinking Water around Kabini River Basin, Karnataka

Abstract

Concentration of radon in ground and drinking water samples are collected from 36 locations around Kabini River basin, Karnataka State, India was measured using Emanometry Technique and it varied from 1.1 to 38.9 Bq.L-1 with geometrical mean of 8.5 Bq.L-1. The higher radon values are found at western side of the river, this is due to the local geology of the area and the upstream water consists of higher activity concentration of radon than that of downstream of the river. The total annual effective dose received by inhalation and ingestion of radon varied from 7.58 to 106.26 μSv.y-1 with geometrical mean of 25.37 μSv.y-1. The annual effective doses were within the safe limit of 0.1 μSv.y-1 as prescribed by World Health Organization (WHO). Out of the total population in the study area, nearly 70% use underground water, 20% use river water and others use surface water (river and lakes) for drinking.

Estimation of Inhalation and Ingestion Dose Due to Radon Concentration in Drinking Water Samples of Shankaraghatta Forest Environment, Karnataka, India

“…The drinking water samples collected from groundwater sources such as bore wells and hand pumps have shown higher radon concentrations among all the samples that are analyzed. This may be due to its increased depth, which allows water to interact with a thicker aquifer, resulting in higher levels of radon in hand pumps and bore wells (7,12) . The higher concentration of radon in the drinking water was found at locations such as the Farmland, Teacher's Quarters, Ladies hostel Lakkavalli Five Light Circle, Karkucchi road, Sogane and Ranganathpura.…”

“…The radon that is present in the soil and rocks may readily dissolve into the water when it comes from these pores and be carried there with it (7) . Various factors influence the radon concentration in water such as geology, the type of aquifer found in those particular locations (12) . The higher radon concentration is indeed mostly due to the deeper wells and hand pumps.…”

“…Figure 5 shows the variation of radon concentration in different sources of drinking water samples, the graph clearly shows that the radon concentration from groundwater samples such as bore well, hand pumps, and open well has shown higher concentrations than the surface water samples. This may be due to the fact that the depth of the bore well and hand pump, greater the depth means it allows water to interact with the aquifers significantly, and also this may be due to the radionuclides present in the soil and rock system (7,10,12,18) . But the radon concentration in the tap water (TP), backwater (BKW), and pond (P) have shown lower radon concentration this may be due to dissolved radon being disrobed and later released along the path water body source and the sample collection point.…”

“…But the radon concentration in the tap water (TP), backwater (BKW), and pond (P) have shown lower radon concentration this may be due to dissolved radon being disrobed and later released along the path water body source and the sample collection point. Also, surface water shows lower radon concentration (12) , because of variations in atmospheric temperature, moreover surface water is well exposed to the atmosphere therefore dissolved radon gets easily discharged. Hence, lower concentrations can be found (10) .…”

Radon concentration measurement and effective dose assessment in drinking groundwater for the adult population in the surrounding area of a thermal power plant

“…Various studies have been performed in different parts of India to measure the radon concentration in groundwater used for drinking purposes. In various states of India, the concentration of radon dissolved in groundwater ranged as follows: 0.87-6.73 Bql À1 in Himachal Pradesh (Singh et al 2016), 0.4-74.37 Bql À1 in Jammu and Kashmir (Kumar et al 2017a(Kumar et al , 2017b(Kumar et al , 2018Kaur et al 2019), 0.14-35 Bql À1 in Punjab (Kaur et al 2017;Kumar et al 2017cKumar et al , 2019Sharma et al 2019Sharma et al , 2020Pant et al 2020), 0.60-57.35 Bql À1 in Haryana (Duggal et al 2017(Duggal et al , 2018Panghal et al 2017;Sharma et al 2017aSharma et al , 2017bSingh et al 2019), 0.50-861.5 Bql À1 in Rajasthan (Mittal et al 2016a(Mittal et al , 2016bDuggal et al 2020aDuggal et al , 2020b, 0.19-160.18 Bql À1 in Karnataka (Srinivasa et al 2015(Srinivasa et al , 2018(Srinivasa et al , 2019Rangaswamy et al 2016;Niranjan et al 2017;Reddy et al 2017;Shilpa et al 2017;Kaliprasad & Narayana 2018;Sannappa et al 2020;Yashaswini et al 2020) Coal-fired power plants are the sources of fly ash, which contains naturally occurring radioactive elements such as 238 U, 232 Th, and their decay products and other toxic elements. Fly ash is generally stored at coal power plants or placed in landfills.…”