Radon Concentration in Ground Water of Dhaka City, Bangladesh

Abstract

Water is the most important source of life and ground water may contain varying levels of radioactivity. So it is therefore important to measure radon concentration in ground water for public health and radiation protection. In this study, radon concentration was measured in ground water samples collected from water pumps of different locations at Dhaka city, Bangladesh. Twenty ground water samples were collected in July 2017to April 2018 for radon level measurement. Radon detector RAD7 (manufactured by Durridge Company, USA) with RAD H2O technique was used for the measurement. The highest radon concentration was found 13.00±0.70 Bq/L for the pump of sample ID GW1 and the lowest radon concentration 2.13±0.593 Bq/L for the pump of sample ID GW10.The activity concentration of radon in maximum water samples in Dhaka city was lower than the value 11.1 Bq/L recommended by United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA). The radon concentration was lowered from the activity concentration before storage. The highest value of annual effective dose for radon in ground water was found 0.04745 mSv/y According to recommendation of World Health Organization, the annual effective dose level for radon in drinking water is 0.1 mSv/y. These results indicate that there is no probability of health hazards for public due to presences of radon in ground water and it is safe for consumption.

Radon Concentrations in Indoor and Outdoor Environments of Atomic Energy Centre Dhaka, Bangladesh, and Concomitant Health Hazards

“…Usually, radon gas is released into the atmosphere from ground formation and significantly contributes to elevated indoor radon levels through some mechanisms including convection via cracks and openings, diffusion from the soil via the pore space, an emanation from building materials, off-gassing of waterborne radon into the indoor environment, and entry of radon into the structure from outdoor air (Kumar et al, 2007;Pervin et al, 2018;Lee et al, 2020). Other influencing parameters are the radium content and mineralogy of the host rock and soil, porosity, grain size, moisture content, and permeability (Antoci et al, 2007).…”