Assessment of background radiation level in different tourism beach of Bengkayang, West Borneo

Abstract

Environmental radiation and radioactivity monitoring has become important to investigate to generate a baseline database in Bengkayang Sea-Beach area, West Borneo. There is a need to conduct an environmental monitoring program to determine any change due to radioactivity radiation released from the nuclear installation in case of normal operation or emergency conditions, where Bengkayang is a candidate site of Indonesia’s Nuclear Power Plant. In this study, the background radiation levels have been measured at 9 different tourism beach areas of Bengkayang. Natural background radiation is the main source of radiation for the public of tourism. Calibrated gamma dose monitor were used for the measurement of dose level where reading was taken by placing the survey meter at ground level and at a height of 1 m from the ground (gonad level). The observed background radiation dose rate of 9 beach areas is below the world average. The mean Annual Effective Dose Equivalent (AED) is found comparable to other studies. The radiation the population receives due to beach sands mainly results from the time spent on the beach during recreation. The results show that 9 tourism beaches of Bengkayang are considered as safe areas with natural background radiation.