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Simultaneous measurements of radon, thoron and their progeny for inhalation dose assessment in indoors of Srinagar, J&K, India

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Abstract

A variety of toxins are known to affect indoor air quality, thereby affecting the health of the inhabitants of that region. One such natural contaminant is radon, which is a dense, colourless, odourless and inert gas. As per BEIR-VI report (Chauhan and Chauhan in J Environ Radioact, 2015. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvrad.2015.03.009), Radon alone contributes to more than 50% of the total natural background radiation and is the second leading element causing lung cancer after smoking. Therefore, its quantification is vital to assess any risk to human health. In order to assess health risks, a recently developed LR-115 detector based technique was employed for time-integrated passive measurements of radon, thoron and their progeny concentrations. The annual average radon concentration was found to be 35.6 Bq m−3 and thus lies well below the global average of 40 Bq m−3. However, thoron concentration exceeded the global average value of 10 Bq m−3.

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Fig. 1

Source: Thakur and Rawat [55], Chandra et al. [56]

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Acknowledgements

We appreciate the residents of Srinagar city for their kind cooperation and trust. The authors express gratitude to the editor and the three anonymous reviewers for their comments on the earlier version of the manuscript that greatly improved the structure and content of this manuscript. Special thanks to Shahbaz Ali and Shahid ul Islam for their proficient support to carry out field investigation. A sincere thank you to Essar Batool for her diligent proofreading of this manuscript.

Funding

This work was supported by the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), Board of Research in Nuclear Sciences (BRNS), Trombay, Mumbai, India [Grant Number: 36(4)/14/48/2015-BRNS].

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, University of Kashmir, Srinagar, J&K, 190006, India

    Salik Nazir, Shakeel Simnani & Sajad Masood

  2. Radiation Safety Systems Division, Health Physics Division, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Trombay, Mumbai, 400085, India

    Rosaline Mishra

  3. Department of Physics, Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar, Punjab, 143005, India

    Tanu Sharma

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  1. Salik Nazir
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Contributions

SR and SS designed the research plan, led the development of this study, and wrote the manuscript with contributions from RM, TS, and SM. SR carried out all the radioactive surveys and sample analyses. RM and TS contributed to the data analyses and interpretation. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Shakeel Simnani.

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Nazir, S., Simnani, S., Mishra, R. et al. Simultaneous measurements of radon, thoron and their progeny for inhalation dose assessment in indoors of Srinagar, J&K, India. J Radioanal Nucl Chem 325, 315–328 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10967-020-07233-2

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