The Radon Gas in Underground Buildings in Clay Soils. The Plaza Balmis Shelter as a Paradigm

Abstract

In healthy buildings, it is considered essential to quantify air quality. One of the most fashionable indicators is radon gas. To determine the presence of this element, which is harmful to health, in the environment, the composition of the soil is studied. The presence of radon gas within a building depends both on the terrain in which it is located and on the composition of the materials of which it is composed, and not as was previously believed, only by the composition of the soil (whether granitic or not). Many countries are currently studying this phenomenon, including Spain where the building regulations regarding the accumulation of radon gas, do not list in their technical codes, the maximum dose that can a building can hold so that it is not harmful to people and the measures to correct excessive accumulation. Therefore, once the possible existence of radon in any underground building has been verified, regardless of the characteristics of the soil, the importance of defining and unifying the regulations on different levels of radon in all architectural constructions is evident. Medical and health science agencies, including the World Health Organization, consider that radon gas is a very harmful element for people. This element, in its gaseous state, is radioactive and it is present in almost soils in which buildings are implanted. Granitic type soils present higher levels of radon gas. Non-granitic soils have traditionally been considered to have very low radon levels. However, this paper demonstrates the relevant presence of radon in non-granitic soils, specifically in clayey soils, by providing the results of research carried out in the underground air raid shelter at Balmis Square in Alicante (Spain). The results of the measurements of radon accumulation in the Plaza Balmis shelter are five times higher than those obtained in a similar ungrounded building. This research addresses the constructive typology of an under-ground building and the radon presence in its interior obtained using rigorous measurement techniques.

The Importance of Checking Indoor Air Quality in Underground Historic Buildings Intended for Tourist Use

“…The shelter has been studied in different aspects: the constructive typology of the underground building, its historical context, and the presence of radon inside was measured using rigorous measurement techniques. The results obtained from the measurements make the shelter a paradigm to demonstrate the relevant presence of more than 100 Bq/m 3 of radon in the interior of an underground building in non-granitic soil [40].…”

The first version of the Pan-European Indoor Radon Map

“…Barré et al, 2008;Milošević et al, 2017;Tarvainen et al, 2005), and although the permeability of wet clays is low, it may increase when soils are dried (Petersell et al, 2005) as a consequence of building a house (Barnet et al, 2008). This hypothesis should be tested since clay soils are normally considered low risk although its radium concentration may be high (Maestre and Iribarren, 2018). We have decided, however, to include this parameter in the model since previous studies have shown a positive association between indoor radon and K 2 O/clay (Forkapic et al, 2017).…”

“…However, the E[X] and Var[X] for CCK and RK are biased, unless the true mean is known (although for RK it should be zero by definition). These equations should also use the Lagrange multiplier which appears in the kriging system (Chilès and Delfiner, 1999;Matheron, 1974); but unfortunately in common geostatistical packages this parameter is not accessible, and it is not easy to estimate it. Another problem with lognormal kriging is that ill assessment of the kriging SD leads to large errors in E[X] and Var[X] due to exponentiation, so that variogram parameters must be estimated very carefully (Armstrong and Boufassa, 1988).…”

Ventilation as an Indispensable Tool for Healthy Constructions: Comparison of Alicante’s Urban Railway Tunnels

“…In the urban center of the city are the two mountains compared in the study: Benacantil Mount and Serra Grossa. Therefore, they can be considered to have the same igneous composition [45,46].…”